Secondary Education Commission (1952-53)
After the University Education Commission, under the leadership of Dr. A. Lakshmanaswami Mudaliar, the then Vice-Chancellor of university of Madras, a new commission was set up in 1952 to recommend suggestions for the reform of the education system in the country. It was appointed to review secondary education system, but, as a part, it studied the teacher education system and came with innovative recommendation to improve the quality of teacher education.
The commission expressed in its report deep concern for the sub-standard and low quality teacher training programmes of the country and recommended to increase the duration of the programmes to two years. But, due to political reasons the authorities failed to implement some of the suggestion, hence they decided to continue the existing structure of teacher education with minor changes. The duration of the course remained one year but ample opportunity was provided for effective teaching practice sessions in the curriculum. To supplement the training programmes, innovative teaching methods, procedure in evaluation/assessment, new techniques for co-curricular activities, and specialized techniques to teach children with special need were introduced.
The Commission stressed on the need for practice teaching as a part of teacher education programmes. It introduced the concept of demonstration school/ model schools to get training for teacher candidates under practical situation. These schools were to be at a reasonable distance from the training colleges. The Commission suggested that practice teaching should not be limited to demonstration lesson, observation lesson, criticism lesson or practice teaching but also construction and administration of achievement tests, practical classes on physical education, and training sessions on co-curricular activities also must be arranged.
The Commission clearly emphasised the need of various components of practical session in addition to theory courses. The Commission also emphasised the need for specialised training programmes for children with special needs. Apart from that, general principles of mental hygiene were implemented as essential component of teacher education programmes to inculcate proper behavioural skills in teachers and students as well.
The Commission stressed the need of variety of curricular activities and innovative methods of teaching in teacher training programmes. Training in extracurricular activities, training in controlling library, training in physical education, concepts related to health and care of children, school leadership character building, importance of scout and guides, junior red cross, formation of students clubs, citizenship training, conducting debates, seminars, quizzes and social service were some of the programmes recommended by the commission as part of teacher training. The commission also recommended conducting of in-service training for working teachers to update pedagogical and content knowledge. The Commission suggested to distribute stipend to all teacher candidates and to set up residential training schools. In order to overcome the shortage of women teachers in the country, part-time training courses were to be arranged for women candidates. For admission to master degree in education, it was recommended that students should have at least three years of teaching experience.
The Commission suggested two types of training institutions for teacher training. These were:
Two-year teacher training programme:
It was conducted for candidates having school leaving certificate or higher secondary leaving certificate. The programme should be arranged under a separate apex body under the government.
One-year teacher training programme:
It was for candidates who are graduates. It should be under any universities of the country. The degree or diploma certificate has to be awarded to the students after completion of the one year course by any university.
Many of the recommendations were accepted and implemented by the state but failed to implement some of the recommendation in satisfactory manner. The government in 1954 appointed another team of international experts in collaboration with Ford Foundation to study education in detail. This team recommended the following measures to improve quality of graduate teacher education programmes:
- The teacher education programme should be designed in such a manner that it should prepare the students to take up assignment as teachers.
- Realistic methods of teaching should be implemented in teacher education institutes.
- Practice teaching should be arranged in block-wise manner and proper implementation strategy has to be adopted.
- Laboratory schools should be set up to experiment innovative method of teaching and curriculum construction.
- Extracurricular activities should be arranged and made an integral component of practice teaching.
In 1956, the government appointed an expert committee with Dr. E. A Pires as Head to design a new syllabus for secondary teachers training. The committee, later known as Pires Committee, published the draft of recommendation, which was accepted at the Conference of the Principals of Training Colleges in 1957. The recommendations are given below.
- Weightage for both theory and practical courses should be made equal
- The theory papers of teacher education to be reduced to the following four papers:
o Principles of Education and School Organisation
o Educational Psychology and Health Education
o Methods of Teaching of two school subjects
o Current Problems in Indian education
The second Five Year Plan was launched in 1955-56 and it was contemplated that sixty-eight per cent of teachers would be trained by 1960. An amount of seventeen crore was apportioned for increasing training facilities. In 1957, the All India Council for Secondary Education and All India Council for Elementary education were formed to recommend suggestions for improvement of teacher education at respective levels. Both councils provided necessary extension services to teacher education programmes in various areas.
During the decade of 1960’s, more efforts were made by different committees to review and recommend innovative strategies to improve the quality of teacher education in the country. A major one was the Review Committee formed by the University Grants Commission in 1960, under the chairmanship of N. K. Sidhantaah. The All India Council for Elementary Education also appointed a study group in 1961 under the chairmanship of Roy Singh. Both the review committees presented its views on structure and procedure of teacher education in the country and contributed valuable suggestions to improve the system.
The study group’s work concentrated on elementary teacher education while the Review Committee commented on the objectives, curriculum and transitional strategies of teacher education. The study group, finding the quality of elementary teacher education poor, recommended in-service training to the untrained teachers working in the country. It also recommended to provide extension services to untrained teachers on massive scale to improve quality of elementary teachers. The major recommendations of these committees are as given below:
- The criterion for admission to M.Ed. degree programmes was fixed as second class master’s degree plus first class in B.Ed. degree both in theory and practical paper. Those having at least second class in bachelors/ masters were given direct admission to two year integrated M.Ed. degree course, to attract gifted candidates for teaching profession.
- Students had to complete one specialisation with acquaintance in methodology of research.
- Individual dissertations were replaced with group projects at M.Ed. level.
- Those who aspired to conduct research studies in education were to be scrutinized by a screening committee appointed for the same.
- Encouragement was provided to research scholars on studies which required immediate attention in educational field.
- Doctoral degree holders are only permitted to supervise research scholars.
Again in the same year (1961), a study group under the leadership of B. M. Jha was appointed by the Planning Commission to suggest measures on improvement of teacher education. The committee emphasised the need to replace old age traditional system of teacher education with modern, innovative styles of teacher education to create capable teachers useful in nation building. They were of the opinion that sound teachers, male or female, can be moulded only through proper
integration of theoretical knowledge with practical component of teacher education curriculum. The concern on the wide gap between theory and practical component was noted by the committee which suggested conducting about thirty lessons (fifteen each in two subjects) during the course of teaching practice.
This system is followed still in some states as a continuation observing lesson, criticism lesson, and demonstration lesson. In addition, proper experimentation in various extracurricular activities was to be conducted to gain more insight in various components of teacher education. The Commission appreciated the contributions of Kurukshetra University and four regional colleges of education in the field of teacher education, on experimentation of various components of teacher education. The Commission also recommended giving high priority to teacher education in the Twelfth Five Year Plan.
Another landmark during the 1960s was the establishment of National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), with headquarters at New Delhi and opening of Regional Colleges of Education at Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Mysore and Ajmer. NCERT was intended to provide training to school teachers, conduct research, publish necessary books and other related material and co-ordinate various activities of school and Regional Colleges of education. Later, NCERT came up with designing text books for different classes. Meanwhile, Regional Colleges offered different types of degrees in teacher education and in turn, set standard for teacher education in the country. They offered innovative four year integrated B.A., B.Ed./ B.Sc., B.Ed./B.Tech and other normal B.Ed. programmes.