The teacher is central to all educational reform
– this is the underlying principle of change in
educational processes. Hence, an initiative to
capacitate teachers is generally an adjunct to most
government initiatives in education. The word
adjunct is chosen with care – while the intent is
to capacitate teachers to create change, somehow
the teacher becomes a supplementary rather than
a key player. A case in point is the implementation
of continuous and comprehensive evaluation
across States. A reinforcement of good pedagogy
became a ‘programme’ with fixed templates and
close monitoring in most states. From trust in the
teacher and autonomy for her to help her students
learn, we moved to what was resented as additional
paperwork.
While the reasons for a lack of trust in the teacher
are many, ranging from systematic downgrading
of the status of the teacher through top-down
percolation of curricula, materials and processes,
to the lack of facilitation within the ecosystem
in which the teacher works, one manifestation
is the perpetuation of outdated practices in our
classrooms with ever worsening learning outcomes.
The situation becomes even more ironical when one
considers the multiple initiatives the government
has created for the professional development of
teachers, including the setting up of decentralised
structures devoted entirely to this purpose. While
these structures are meant to facilitate both
pre- and in-service professional development of
teachers, this article will restrict itself to initiatives
related to in-service professional development
or ‘training’, the term commonly used for formal
activities involving learning in teachers
