TEACHER EDUCATION IN SAARC COUNTRIES: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Niranjan manna 1 and Swami tattwasarananda 2 . 1. M. Phil research scholar, ramakrishna mission sikshanamandira, belur math, howrah. 2. Principal, ramakrishna mission sikshanamandira, belur math, howrah. ...................................................................................................................... Manuscript Info Abstract ......................... ........................................................................ Manuscript History Received: 20 October 2018 Final Accepted: 22 November 2018 Published: December 2018

Teacher education programme is employed to meet the need of the profession, to face the professional challenges, to enable and empower the teacher for the development of teacher proficiency and competence. The comparative study on contemporary Teacher Education in SAARC countries is an attempt to promote and develop a broad understanding about the objectives. This investigation was restricted to the study of the present objectives of some selected SAARC countries that is India, Bangladesh Sri Lanka & Pakistan. The present study is a qualitative one and belongs to the broad area of "Comparative Education". The objectives of secondary teacher education programmes have been set up by India and Sri Lanka in a modern way to cope up with respective issues and to keep pace with recent global trends of secondary teacher education. Teacher education institutions have been restructured and the curriculum and methodologies have been reshaped by Pakistan. Bangladesh has adopted modern technologies and techniques within their capacity and thus promoted teacher education in their training colleges.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….... Introduction:-
Teacher education programme is employed to meet the need of the profession, to face the professional challenges, to enable and empower the teacher for the development of teacher proficiency and competence. Dr. Sarvapalli Radha Krishnan rightly said "Until and unless we have dedicated and committed teachers, who can take teaching as a mission in their lives, we can"t have a good educational system. Teachers should be the best minds of the country". The society establishes schools for safeguarding, development and fulfilment of its traditions and principles. Education programme is a necessity for producing skilful and efficient teachers. Teacher education programme initiated the formation of ancient education system and till now it has been enriching the modern education system according to the need if the society.
It is now a global phenomenon that teachers have acquired a supreme position in the complete field of educative process. Without competent teachers i.e., teachers who have the required academic background, professional skills and personal traits of character to translate thought into action those widely accepted principles of education which constitute the bed-rock of a sound and progressive system of education, all the factors and infrastructural equipmentbuildings, instruments and instructional materials, organizational and allied expenditure in education would be futile. The educationists and administrators worldwide have started focusing more attention for the improvement of teacher education in the recent years. As a result this has produced significant upheaval in the theory and practice of 1421 teachers" professional preparation in the past few years, resulting in the emergence of new ideology, new concepts and new trends in the field.
The South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) is an economic and political organisation of eight countries in Southern Asia. It (SAARC) was formally established on December 8, 1985 by Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in order to strengthen regional co-operation to promote the socioeconomic development in the region. In April 2007, Afghanistan became the eighth member of the Association.
The comparative study on contemporary Teacher Education in SAARC countries is an attempt to promote and develop a broad understanding about the objectives, forms & features, organisational patterns, modern trends and emerging issues in neighbouring countries of this zone in respect of a fundamental sector of education that is teacher education particularly when all the developing countries are trying to accept the reality of globalisation. The teachers of SAARC member countries are also experiencing the change and they have to think globally from their local context. In all the SAARC nations, Teacher Education Programmes are responsive fully to the Education Policies of respective countries and at the same time to the global trends of modernisation. Being an exploratory attempt, it may suffer from predictable limitations of the various aspects of teacher preparation, especially the structural, functional and systematic properties, which are being carried out in these academic programmes.

Objectives of the study:
To know the objectives of teacher education programme of different SAARC countries.

Delimitation of the study:
This investigation was restricted to the study of the present objectives of some selected SAARC countries that is India, Bangladesh Sri Lanka & Pakistan.

Methodology of the research:-
The present study is a qualitative one and belongs to the broad area of "Comparative Education". The sources of different SAARC member countries information therefore are commonly classified as primary sources and secondary sources. Primary data was collected through interview of different persons from different SAARC countries and secondary data was collected from books, journals and internet.

Findings and discussion:-
To prepare an efficient teacher is a mammoth task today. Formerly, it was thought that teachers are born not made but now it has been proved by the works of recent researches in this field that efficient and competent teachers can be made by modifying their behaviour. So the main purpose of the teacher education programme is to prepare effective and competent teachers. The accomplishment of any educational reform is dependent on the quality of teacher that consequently depends on a large extent to the quality of the teacher education programme of a state/nation. Teacher preparation, a primary aim of the colleges and universities, has now come out as one of the most vital policy priorities in all the nations worldwide along with those belong to "South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation" (SAARC) group. It is unquestionably a key element in achieving the goal of uplifting the school performance of basic and secondary students. Common geographic and climatic features are prevalent in SAARC countries and they share issues related to socio-economy, culture, and education of their people. They have discrete as well as some common objectives and issues which they are trying to sort out through mutual activities by using the common platform of SAARC.
Human resource development is one of the five areas of cooperation as decided by the member countries. At the Fourth Summit in 1988, the Heads of the States and Governments of SAARC Member Countries gave their mutual consent to establish SAARC Human Resource Development Centre (SHRDC) in Islamabad, Pakistan with a view to carrying out research, impart trainings, organise workshops, propagate information on Human Resource Development (HRD) issues and advise the Member States on HRD related policies and strategies. In the Summit, the SAARC leaders resolved to include education in the contracted areas of cooperation and a Technical Committee was created to deal with the principal area of importance in the region. It was then re-structured as the SAARC Integrated Programme of Action (SIPA) in 1999 and subsequent creation of the Technical Committee on Human Resource Development.

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The Thirty-Fourth Session of the Standing Committee held in New Delhi on 5-6 December, 2007 also advocated the directives of Technical Committee on Human Resource Development (TCHRD) relating to education and skills development to SHRDC. A three-day workshop on "Improving the Quality of Education: Role of Teacher in Achieving Quality in Education in South Asia" was conducted by SHRDC in collaboration with the Institute of Educational Development (IED), BRAC University, Dhaka, from 26-28 December ,2011 in Dhaka. The main objective of the workshop was to explore the current situation of quality of education with regard to teacher"s role and prepare strategies to improve quality of education in future. The other objectives were as the followings-1. To know the areas where teachers can play effective roles in promoting quality education in the region. 2. To foreground the top practices on providing quality of education regionally and worldwide. 3. To shed light on the effectiveness of teacher education programmes in the region. 4. To review the progress achieved by Member States in realising quality of education. 5. To suggest activities for teachers, policymakers and other authority concerned to achieve quality of education in SAARC Member States. 6. To analyse country-specific information and statistics during country report presentations.
Main objective of Teacher education of SAARC countries is to promote quality teacher preparation so that they may prepare quality students who can build their nation by cooperation with each other in a spirit of friendship, trust and understanding. Objectives of Pre-Service Teacher Education (PSTE) programme at the secondary stage in countries of SAARC region are in tune with the philosophical background, national goal and value system of each country too because the education system is always influenced by these factors of the country concerned.

Bangladesh
National Education Commission (NEC), Bangladesh acknowledged that the quality of secondary education was going down gradually. Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examination results showed an unsatisfactory picture. Against this backdrop, NEC suggested policy guidelines for education administration, infrastructure and environment, curriculum, teaching methods, and evaluation, social status of teachers and teacher"s professional education. Addressing education administration of the country, NEC has suggested decentralisation of secondary education administration at the division, district, and sub-district (upazila) levels. They have also recommended creation of a separate directorate for secondary education Observing the quality of education in secondary level, NEC has recommended (i) provision of laboratory equipment in school laboratories; (ii) modernisation of curriculum and syllabus; (iii) improvement of curriculum, teaching methods, and student evaluation; (iv) insertion of core subjects in madrasah and vocational curriculum; and (v) introduction of School-Based Assessment (SBA). To improve teaching quality, NEC suggested training for all subject teachers, development of professionalism among teachers, and capacity development of teacher education colleges.
To produce quality teachers the Government is all set to measure learning outcomes of students, particularly from disadvantaged group of society, enrolled in the secondary education. This will certainly be achieved through a continuous process by (i) framing teacher development policy and preparing proper curriculum framework to ensure rationality within a uniform approach that the Government visualises within its National Education Policy; (ii) setting and implementing standards for teacher recruitment, proper utilisation of teacher, providing modern training and providing teaching materials in the classroom particularly for subjects like Science, Mathematics, and English; (iii) developing, upgrading and strengthening network of teacher education institutions at all levels.
The educationists and specialists of teacher development programme also aim at 1.
Making a supervision of the on-going teacher education programmes, including Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.), Continuing Professional Development (CPD), Secondary Teaching Certificate (STC).

2.
Considering the condition of teacher competencies and recommend further developments to ensure merger of different pre-service and in-service teacher education programmes.

3.
Making a review of the institutional analysis undertaken by the TQI Project and identify areas that require further assessment and analysis.

4.
Appraising teacher"s professional records and recommend for their promotion.

5.
Plotting out the existing teacher education programmes and the persons involved in it and their connection with each other.

India
In India, level to ensure quality education in the secondary, quality teachers are produced through Pre-service Teacher Education Programmes (PSTE). Two-year Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) programme is being run largely in teacher education institutions and universities which are controlled by Government and private bodies. The apex regulatory authority of teacher education in India is National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) which was shaped as a statutory body after a Parliamentary Act (1993) in 1995. The main goal of the NCTE as per National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education (2009) is to carry out planned and coordinated development of the teacher education programme in the country as well as regulation and proper maintenance of norms and standards in all respect in the teacher education programme, both primary and secondary. Strengthened by the Prime Minister"s vision of developing India as a Knowledge Society, the Planning Commission has constituted a Vision 2020 Group to take into account various parameters of knowledge society that relates to knowledge as a base to create values to be shared through global networking. National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) have been assigned the task to develop the educational aspect of Vision 2020. Vision 2020 is aiming at changing to the trend in teacher education to the following extent: 1. To provide teachers with enough exposure in pre-service training programmes so that they can fully make use of information and communication technologies. 2. To help the student-teachers develop thinking capacities by modifying present trend of rote learning. 3. The focus of teacher education will be more school oriented. Teacher education programmes will offer inputs so that the teachers may become more responsible.
Main objectives of Secondary Teacher Education in India are as follows: 1. To enable them to develop happy and healthy relationship with school and community, and to arouse interest in lifelong learning. 2. To help one become a good teacher as well as a good citizen. 3. To help the potential teachers understand their student better. 4. To enable the prospective teachers to follow disciplinary approach in teaching, and to arouse students" curiosity in such studies. 5. To help create a national system of teacher education based on India"s cultural ethics, its unity and diversity, change and continuity. 6. To make the students develop love and respect for Indian culture, to enable them to know India"s contribution to the world and to infuse a sense of national pride and identity in them. 7. To help the prospective teachers understand the nature, purpose and philosophy of secondary education. 8. To enable them to develop skills, understanding, interest and attitudes by means of which they can promote all round growth and development of student under his care.

Pakistan
According to the educationists, the status of secondary education in Pakistan is in wretched condition due to the dearth of professional teachers in the secondary level. Inadequate professional education for teachers, ill facilities, policies and their mal-implementations were shown responsible for this critical situation at the National Conference on Teacher Education (2005) organised by Institute of Educational Development (IED), Pakistan. The conference came to the inference that current Secondary Teacher Education in Pakistan was guided by a mechanistic approach which 'produces technicians rather than reflective, reflexive and critical practitioners'. The experts of The Asia-Pacific Programme of Educational Innovation for Development (APEID) also have same observation that lack of enthusiasm, motivation, dedication and preparedness among the teachers, unattractive pay scale and poor social status of teachers, low quality pre-service teaching provided by the teacher training institutes are responsible for the turmoil situation of Secondary Teacher Education in Pakistan. British Council"s survey on Teacher Education in Pakistan also indicates that secondary teacher education system of Pakistan requires substantial extension and quality improvement. Asian Development Bank"s study on Pakistan Teacher Education system reveals that shortage of trained teachers is the main constraint towards forming a sound Secondary Teacher Education system of Pakistan. 1. Maintaining a close supervision by the concerned authority over balanced nature of academic course of teacher education, content of school curriculum, teaching methods, teaching practice and curricular activities and taking appropriate measures if any deviation takes place. 2. Giving a new structure to the examination system of teacher education programmes. 3. Maintaining strict observation on entry level criteria of secondary teaching profession. 4. Making a coordination of active involvement in strengthening field-based teacher education activities.