Committees and commissions for the development of teacher education during post-independent India: a review

The government of India realised the importance of teacher education as a result of which many reforms were brought out particularly after independence. Many committees and commissions were set up for strengthening the system of teacher education during the post-independence period. As a result, the number of secondary stage institutions have gone up to more than 2000 from a mere 51 institutions in 1947-48. The University Education Commission (1948) recommended that theory and practice of pre-service teacher education must support each other. The Education Commission (1966) recommended the quality of training institutions and of how teacher education programs should be implemented. The Secondary Education Commission (1952-53) recommended the adoption of new techniques of evaluation and suggested that more capable and intelligent persons should be attracted to the teaching profession. The important landmark was the setting up of the State Institutes of Education (SIEs) in 1964 for providing greater coverage and regional specificity in the programs of in-service education and training of teachers and other educational personnel concerned with primary education. In 1973, the government of India constituted the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) to act as a national advisory body on all matters relating to teacher education and to review progress and plan schemes to ensure adequate standards in teacher education. The National Policy on Education (NPE) (1986) and Programme of Action (POA) (1992) called for an overhaul of the teacher education system. The Acharya Ramamurti Committee of 1990 and the Yashpal Committee Report of 1993 made very useful recommendations. The NCTE was established as a statutory body in 1993 by an Act of Parliament for maintaining the norms and standards in the country. In 1998, the NCTE brought out the Curriculum Framework for Quality Teacher Education, which provides guidelines for the organisation of curriculum for different stages of teacher education. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) also brought out teacher education curriculum during 2004. The National Curriculum Framework (2005) recommended that teacher education programs be recast to reflect professionalism in the process of training and teaching. The above committees and commissions, and various scholars and educationalists, have pointed out several weaknesses still prevailing in the teacher education system in our country. Therefore, there is an urgent need to rectify [these] in order to develop quality and competence among prospective teachers so that they may be able to fulfill their changed roles and responsibilities effectively and successfully.

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