Pedagogy most critical factor affecting quality of education, says expert

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 20

A two-day teacher education congress on ‘Teacher Education: Challenges and the Road Ahead’ began today at Panjab University (PU) today.

Prof Mohammad Akhtar Siddiqui, the keynote speaker, said teacher education was passing through an ambivalent stage in its evolutionary process.

He said the most critical factor which affects quality of education was pedagogy. More flexible and varied programmes of teacher education have to be followed. Induction training should be made compulsory. Teachers’ role profile was changing across the world and they were expected to teach effectively in multi-cultural classrooms.

“Before launching the four years’ integrated programme, curriculum, content and pedagogy should be thoroughly planned. Capacity building in teacher education should be done in advance. Innovative ideas should be tried.”

He said the quality of internship in teacher education was another area of concern. It requires formative rather than summative evaluation.

Prof Meenakshi Malhotra, Dean of University Instructions (DUI), highlighted the importance of teacher preparation for improving the quality of school education. She elaborated that qualified teachers were the driving force of knowledge. She proposed that the deliberations of the seminar should draw out some points to ponder over for improving the value quotient of the students and prepare them as humane teachers.

Prof Latika Sharma said the Congress had been conceptualised with the aim of reflecting, introspecting on the practices of curriculum transaction and finding the way forward.

She added that “the onus of teaching the next generation challenges us to be clearer in our thinking, more responsible in our beliefs and more alive to the aims and consequences of our actions.”

Prof SP Malhotra stressed on having diverse curriculum that could suit to every learner’s need. Such a curriculum could include multiple learning engagements, learning outcomes and evaluation schemes. In this direction, he said four-year teacher training programme was a good step. He argued that creative model and spontaneous model should be followed along with the cascade model. Prof Singh gave a presentation on “Practical implication for long-term athletic development to support coaches with the best practices to develop physical movement and sports literacy”.