Teacher Education Programme of IGNOU: Student Teachers' Perception
Darshana P. Sharma
Abstract
There is no doubt that of the factors which determine the quality of education and its contribution to national development, teacher education is the among most important. It is on the qualities and character, educational qualifications and professional competence of the teachers that success of all educational endeavours depends. Thus quality professional training of the teachers is of crucial significance. The need for teacher education through distance mode is felt as all in-service education programmes cannot be organized in face-to-face mode, particularly in view of the numbers involved. The National Policy of Education (1986) has reposed faith in the ability of Distance Education and Open Universities to design courses in the area of teacher education. Now several technologies including audio and video programmes, radio and TV broadcast, radio and teleconferencing are in use in distance education, which have the potential to provide education and training experiences to a large clientele. As a consequence of this demand and possibilities and techniques available, IGNOU since January 2000 has been offering In-service Secondary Training Programme. Feedback exercises with the students are significant for 'quality assurance', which is being given highest priority in higher education. This paper, on the basis of the feedback exercise discusses the reactions and suggestions of the student teachers on various components of the teacher education programme of IGNOU. The reactions of the Student teachers are positive on all the major components of the programme except interactions during counselling and workshops, feedback on assignments, audio-video inputs and schedules of the activities.
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Published by Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India.