Indian Education System – Indian Teachers Need Urgent Upskilling

The history of Indian Education has its sources in the ancient ages where they followed the Gurukul system – a system where the students lived in the house of their teacher until the teacher felt that he had given all that he could. The subjects taught were modified from Sanskrit to Scriptures to Mathematics to Metaphysics and the knowledge attained would be passed on to the future generations. All learning was closely associated with nature and life, and not confined to memorizing some information. But, this system was altered during the Colonial era when the British set up schools. The modern school system was taken to India, including the English language, formerly by Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay in the 1830s. The close link between the teacher and the student was broken after the introduction of schools.

The Uttar Pradesh Board of High School and Intermediate Education was the first Board introduced in India in the year 1921 with jurisdiction over Rajputana, Central India, and Gwalior. The Board of High School and Intermediate Education, Rajputana, was established, in 1929. After that, boards were placed in some of the states. But finally, in 1952, the constitution of the board was amended and it was renamed Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). According to the constitution of India, school education was originally a state subject —that is, the states had entire authority on deciding policies and implementing them. The role of the GOI (Government of India) was confined to coordination and deciding on the standards of higher education. That was modified with a constitutional amendment in 1976 so that education now comes in the so-called concurrent list. This is, school education policies and programs are proposed at the national level by the Government of India through the state governments have a lot of freedom in executing programs. Policies are stated at the national level periodically. The Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), set up in 1935, resumes playing a lead role in the evolution and monitoring of educational policies and programs.

Reason behind the change required in Indian Education System

India’s global education ranking slipped to 93, in the year 2014. That, together with a series of scams covered by the Indian education sector calls for an urgent need to bring changes in our education system. Indian Education System has been called as examinations’, ‘Board Exams’, ‘Entrance Exams’, ‘Marks’, etc. A student in India is left with the option of choosing from Science, Art, or Commerce. After he/she completes his tenth grade. Still, the trend shows that more and more students are opting to go abroad for besides studies after finishing their post-graduation in India. According to the statistics of The U.S. Council of Graduate Schools’ offers of admission to Indian post-graduate students, the admissions are up 25% for 2013-14 from the previous year, compared to a 9% raise for all countries.

Reasons for the soaring number of students not opting India to continue their further education are:

• Lack of top-quality programs given by Indian colleges.
• Poor quality of teachers. Teaching is not regarded as a productive career option in India.
• Most of them finish up in this career as they couldn’t get jobs elsewhere.
• Outdated syllabus taught in most of the schools/colleges.
• Lack of state-of-art infrastructure in the schools/colleges.

Need of Indian teachers upskilling

Teaching as a profession in India is deeply rooted in the ancient scriptures that determine that a relationship between a ‘guru’ and a ‘Shishya’ is sacred. And that the end must always pay gratitude towards the rich knowledge that the former holds.

In the 21st century, teachers have become a catalyst in guiding social changes in our society. It is their wisdom and understanding that shapes every child’s future, thus, changing the fate of the country.

Part of these exceptional teaching skills is expanded by training in academics and achieving various degrees, while a significant portion of it comes with experience and training.

One of the best recent examples of why it is important to focus on enhancing teacher’s education is the impact of the Covid-19 situation on the teaching industry.

Impacted of Digitization Teaching

Digitization in the education industry has made technology more accessible to students. As a result, they have become more conscious of the data available on the internet, even more than what is necessary.

The expanding openness of change additionally allows students to take more than what is allowed in school.

Consequently, teachers should consistently keep themselves one step forward of their students, given schools enlist, and constantly train their teachers to be up-to-date and give more to their students than simply textbook knowledge.

While teachers realize the requirement for this and continuously upskill themselves. It is the responsibility of schools and instructive organizations to routinely give direct learning exercises for educators to learn new techniques.

Teacher training programs are required to give teachers life-long education support and allow them to follow this support after graduation in all areas of their lives. In that way, teachers can undergo adequate pre-service training by the concept of life-long learning will shape the education system as their practices will renew themselves, and they will train future generations accordingly. But, at the point at which these expectations are performed, the extent to which these teacher training programs are effective in upskilling life-long learning competence is unclear. The aspects of the members of the Faculty of Education on this topic, for, are necessary, as they are the programs’ practitioners. 

• The objective of the Study: This study was carried to prepare faculty members’ views on the effectiveness of teacher training programs (TTP) to upskill life-long learning competence.
• Method: The study was taken out with phenomenological design qualitative analysis methods. The study’s working group consists of seven faculty members defined by the sampling method. The data were assembled through in- depth interviews using semi-structured interview methods developed by the researchers. In examining the data, the content analysis method was adopted.
• Findings: The faculty members’ opinions on the effectiveness of teacher training programs to upskill life-long learning support were obtained under four themes. The themes consist of ‘pre-service teachers’ hold of the features of life-long learners, how TTP reflects the Bologna Process, whether life-long learning competence is upskilled via TTP, the expectations that TTP will upskill life-long learning competence, and suggestions for those programs.
• Conclusions and References: The faculty members’ aspects show that the Bologna Process is in practice partly reflected in the academic activities of faculties of education. The study also assumes that teacher training programs are insufficient to upskill life-long learning competence, to improve pre-service teachers self-improvement; the study also assumes that the faculties of education neglect the need to upskill life-long learning competence in the current programs. To equip pre-service teachers with life-long learning provision, the faculty members suggest that the programs be updated, be equipped with more basic skills, and prioritize practicing during the learning process. To accomplish all these purposes, they recommend reducing the programs’ quota and establishing quality standards by assessing faculty members competencies.

What can be done about it?

There are many educational institutions for teachers around the world and many in India also. However, most teacher training programs are adapted towards K-12 education covering a range of areas from educational psychology, curriculum development to policy making.

There is a need for the way the teacher teaches. So, the traditional roles of teachers need to change drastically to adjust to the modern education system because we are still the old methods of teaching and that’s why we are lagging behind other developing countries. If they made some changes in the teaching method then we can see changes in a student’s ability to learn and understand. If in the following 3 sections we concentrate then we can develop the skills in teaching for teachers.

• Compassion: A student-centric approach is required in teaching as there are a variety of students in a class. It means that teachers should be more compassionate about the student’s situation, and should be active in students’ involvement in-class activities.
• Communication: The ability to clear and abridge thoughts into consumable bits is a key skill that will help the teachers effectively to support a diverse set of students.
• Digital comfort: With the help of technology tools such as anti-plagiarism software, use of whiteboards like solutions which can be delivered via LMSs, etc. Will help teachers to teach them properly and innovatively and can also prevent the misuse of online resources.

Higher education institutions and regulators need to distinguish the importance of hiring for and providing prescribed training for their teachers. As a great work of research doesn’t make one a teacher and vice-versa.

However, institutions hire or appoint teachers/professors according to their academic qualifications but not according to the ability to teach the students. So, to change this system there should be the establishment of recognized training programs that would focus on specific skills that will help teachers to adapt and ease into today’s classroom or education system.

New Education Policy

Some significant Highlights of the New National Education Policy are given below:

• According to the revised policy, the existing 10 + 2 structure of the school curriculum will be replaced by a 5 + 3 + 3 + 4 curricular structure matching the ages of 3 – 8, 8 – 11, 11 – 14, 14 -18 years respectively. With the new curricular structure, there will also be an expansion in the age group of mandatory schooling from 6-14 years to 3-18 years (new). It will also include 12 years of schooling with three years of Anganwadi / Pre-Schooling which will be a must.
• The new policy indicates that wherever the medium of instruction may be in the mother tongue/local or regional language till at least grade 5, but optionally till class 8 and beyond in both private and public schools and both types of school has to follow this norm. Further, no language should be imposed on anyone whether it is teachers or students.
• A single overarching umbrella body will be set up by The Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) for entire higher education, excluding medical and legal education. Both public and private higher secondary institutions have to follow. A stage-wise mechanism is to be established for granting graded independence to colleges as the Government aims to stage out the affiliation of colleges in 15 years.
• As per New education Policy 2020, the unyielding separations between subjects’ the stream will be done away with. Thus, students will have the freedom to pick subjects they would like to study across streams. Additionally, vocational education will also be introduced from class 6 in schools which will also include internship programs as well.
• The undergraduate degree duration will be either 3 or 4 years. Within this period the student will be given several exit options whichever they prefer. For example, if a college student would like to leave after 1 year or after 2 years of study, or after completing a 3-year program, the college will have to grant them a certificate in a discipline or field including vocational and professional, diploma or a bachelor’s degree respectively. The government will establish an Academic Bank of Credit for digitally storing academic credits received from different Higher Educational Institutions so that these can be relocated and calculated towards the final degree received.
• National education policy has succeeded to touch the intact part of the education system in India. One of the bold proposals of this policy, states that either stand-alone institutions should change themselves into a multidisciplinary mode or they will have to close. Under this policy comprehensive freedom has been granted to the state in numerous domains.
• There has always been a bone of disagreement between the state and center over the dominion. Thus, the National Education Policy has taken measures to have a general outlook in this respect. It is important to note that education is a constant process, and that is why it is essential to put more importance on connecting education to the environment. But now, the NEP has given more attention to developing life skills in the educational process as the acknowledgment of the importance of life skills was long unsettled.
• Students belonging to socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds will be provided with free boarding facilities and it will be built according to the standard of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas.
• A new and inclusive National Curriculum Outline for Teacher Education, NCFTE 2021, will be formulated by the NCTE in consultation with NCERT. The minimum degree qualification for teaching will be a 4-year cohesive B.Ed. degree and will be implemented by 2030. Strict action will be taken against inferior stand-alone Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs).
• Throughout the year various types of enrichment activities involving arts, quizzes, sports, and vocational crafts will be included to encourage the bagless days.
• Children with disabilities will be allowed to fully participate in regular schooling from the initial stage to higher education. And every state/district will be encouraged to set up ‘Bal Bhavans’ as a special daytime boarding school, to participate in art, or play-related activities.
• Lastly, the policy will provide a lot of flexibility in the Indian education system. This is an important step even for the institutions to place them at balance with the International Higher Education Institutions.

Conclusion

The Indian Education system follows the old education system which was earlier set up by the British. Although we can brag about having a large number of the IITs, IIMs, and some of the best law and medical colleges, but still India’s contribution to the world of change is close to none. Therefore, our education system’s main focus should be on bringing out not just engineers, but also entrepreneurs, artists, scientists, writers, etc. as all of them are important for the development of an economy. Hence, with the new educational system, we all are looking forward to the changes made in the new education policy. Thus, the National Education Policy 2020, is an attempt to address most of the objections of the education system, which have been pending for decades. This is certainly a historic moment for all the stakeholders included, be it the teachers, students, or parents. It is interesting to see how the patterns of this policy will be executed, but we can be sure that this is a new age for the Indian Education aspect.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) regarding Indian Education System 

Q1. What are the reasons for poor education in India?

Ans. The reasons for the poor quality include the absence of around 25% of teachers every day. The states of India have introduced tests and education assessment systems to identify and improve such schools.

Q2. Why is the change required?

Ans. Reason behind the changes required in the Indian education system.

• Lack of top-quality programs given by Indian colleges.
• Poor quality of teachers. Teaching is not regarded as a productive career option in India.
• Most of them finish up in this career as they couldn’t get jobs elsewhere.
• Outdated syllabus taught in most of the schools/colleges.
• Lack of state-of-art infrastructure in the schools/colleges.

Q3. Why Indian teachers need upskilling?

Ans. Exceptional teaching skills are expanded by training in academics and achieving various degrees, while a significant portion of it comes with experience and training.