Education Commission (1964-66) on Teacher Education

Education Commission (1964-66) 

In the history of education, another commission was appointed under the chairmanship of S. Kothari (popularly known as the Kothari Commission) to review the education system in 1964. The commission submitted its report in 1966—a comprehensive report on different aspects of education. The Commission gave valuable suggestions on different sectors of education, viz, primary, secondary, higher secondary, vocational, technical and teacher education. The Commission devoted a separate sheet for the recommendations on teacher education at all levels of teacher education, from elementary teacher education to higher secondary. It expressed its deep concern for poor quality of teacher education and recommended a sound programme of professional education to teachers. 

The Commission found that the quality of teacher education is very poor in some institutes and had nothing to do with the ground reality. It suggested the following strategies to improve teacher education in the country: 

1. Removing mismatch of teacher education programmes with school life realities
2. Bringing teacher education closer to university education—teacher education programmes should be raised to the standard of collegiate education 
3. Adopt methods to improve quality of both training procedure and training institutions 
4. Internship programme to carry out practical knowledge in real classroomsituations which would help build healthy relationship between working teachers, classroom climates, activities of schools 
5. Expand the scope and access of training facilities 
6. Implement in-service training programmes for professional growth 
7. Creation of agencies both at national and state level to maintain the standard of education 

Isolation of teacher education was one of the important recommendations of Kothari Commission. It stated that education should be isolated from universities and treated as social science or a separate discipline. This subject can be introduced as an elective subject both at undergraduate or postgraduate level. The courses at undergraduate level would include papers like philosophy, psychology and sociological foundations of education, comparative education, contribution of great educationists and a paper on recent trends and practices of educational problems. 

For postgraduate level, M.A. in education should be introduced of two year duration. The Commission was of the opinion that training schools should assist the neighbourhood schools in day to day activities like planning timetable, and help in using improved teaching methods. This may be facilitated by opening an extension department at all training level institutions. 

The commission also pointed out the following measures to improve professionalism and quality of teacher education: 

1. Linking theoretical knowledge/subject knowledge to practical activities of the school. 
2. In order to overcome the burden due to linkage of the fundamental subject knowledge with school curriculum, number of working days may be increased from 180 to 190 days to 230 days. 
3. Integrated courses may be developed and practiced in universities with strong education departments or schools of education. 
4. No separate institute should be opened to experiment integrated courses. 
5. Curriculum should be reframed so as to build professional qualities of students at maximum possible level. It should include the cultural aspects of the country. 
6. Proper books must be written to cater to the needs of teacher student community for reference during teacher education period. 
7. Research on relevant educational programmes to be carried out at all levels of teacher education. Focus should be given to research on teaching of English and Indian languages.

To improve the quality of teaching methods and instruction, the Commission recommended the following: 

1. Traditional methods of teaching should be replaced with novel methods of teaching. Teaching methods can adopt strategies like self-reflection, self-study, independent thinking methods, audio-visual equipment, case studies, project works seminars. 
2. Teacher education should be well integrated to develop qualities like concern for society, sensitivity towards human behaviours, and positive attitude toward teaching profession. 
3. Reform in evaluation system must be introduced. Internal assessment should be made an integral component of evaluation. Teachers should take care to maintain cumulative records in consultation with the students. 
4. Teaching practice should be conducted in two stages and are supposed to conduct continuous practice teaching of at least eight weeks in a school identified by them. They should participate in all activities of the school, school assembly, physical education classes, club formation, art festivals, library work, workshops and other co-curricular activities. 
5. As part of professional development, special professional training programmes should be arranged for school headmasters and teacher educators. 
6. The duration of the programme may be extended to two years for students who have completed secondary school certificate and one year for graduate students. 
7. The post graduate course in teacher education must be flexible to adapt changes in the society. 
8. Curriculum of teacher education should be flexible and should be modified to incorporate the latest happening in the field of education, to meet the realities of the practical activities of the classrooms. Political, social, economical and technological developments must be incorporated in revising the curriculum. 
9. In-service programmes may be arranged at all levels from primary to higher secondary to develop the professional qualities by various organisations, universities, teacher training colleges. Teachers to attend at least two/three month’s in-service programmes once in five year. For secondary teachers, school summer institutes should be developed and proper follow up strategies should be planned to monitor the in-service programmes. 

As per the recommendations of the Kothari Commission, universities like Kanpur, Kurukshetra and Aligarh started new master degree courses in education. To provide in-service courses summer school-cum-correspondence courses were initiated by regional colleges of education. Steps were taken by the regional colleges of education to provide training programmes to the untrained teachers of the country. During this period, different state governments took keen interest to open State Boards of Teacher Education to impart training to teachers at different level and to develop linkage between various teacher education colleges at the university and college levels.

The impact of recommendations of Kothari Commission was to raise the  standard and quality of teacher education in the country. The number of teacher education institutions increased to 273 in 1956 from fifty in 1950. Similarly, the number of elementary teacher education increased to 1548 in 1965-66 from 184 in 1950s. The Fourth Five Year Plan emphasised the need to rethink and spend a good amount to improve the quality of teacher education by training women teachers, Scheduled Tribe teachers, mathematics and science teachers. In between a review committee was appointed in 1968 under the chairmanship of B. D. Nagachudhari to look into the functioning of NCERT. 

The Committee suggested reinstating the integrated teacher education courses from Regional Colleges of Education to universities. Another landmark in the field of Teacher Education was the establishment of National Council for teacher education (NCTE) in 1973, an apex non-statutory body exclusively for teacher education. This body was entrusted to report to the government in matters relating to teacher education in the country and to look after the implementation of strategies of teacher education designed in Five Year Plans. The NCTE was located at NCERT campus and it designed the first framework, Teacher Education Curriculum in 1978, which covered the whole aspect of teacher education and gave remarkable suggestions regarding pedagogy, content, procedure, methods, practice teaching, and curriculum. Due to non-statutory status, NCTE authorities failed to implement some of the suggestions.