Installing the Software of Excellence in India's Teacher Education-The Hidden Dimensions

‘A recent survey of five rural schools and five urban schools by the author revealed a startling fact regarding the new challenges for teacher education in India. It was found in the survey that despite the greater flow of funds and availability of better technology, the teachers who bring excellent results are the ones who had the burning desire to help children learn better, which the author calls the software of excellence in teaching learning. The commitment to put in sustained efforts needed for improving the performance of learners at all levels was found missing among a majority of the teachers surveyed, who for one reason or the other were found busy in compiling reports and distributing funds at the expense of the vital teaching learning interactions. This paper discusses the related challenges of public education in India and tries to present an alternative plan of action in order to meet the challenges of global economic exploitation of the masses in the guise of welfare measures. It concludes with asserting the crucial need for reform from within the system of teacher education to rejuvenate the system for making it self-sufficient and self sustained in terms of quality input-output for the educational resurgence of the country. The author is of the opinion that simply by providing funds and recruiting teachers somehow is not going to help achieve the goals of quality education for all; rather a meaningful and alert mechanism of supervision, with active partnership of local bodies is the need of the hour to make the system work. Citing from the work of Dr. James Tooley (2009), the author points out that the way to meet the challenge is a systemic reform, at the centre of which is a paradigm shift in the training of teachers and re-orientation of educational administrators for their new and more complicated roles as sincere facilitators for lifelong learning of their students.’