Do we exercise similar care when we entrust our children to teachers? After all, a bad doctor can harm a patient's health, but a bad teacher can harm the future of hundreds of children.
Virtually anyone today can become a teacher in India. A B.Ed. degree helps get a job, but does it help make a good teacher?
Unfortunately, many teacher training programmes actually offer little more than a paper degree. Except for few honourable exceptions, curriculums have often not been upgraded for decades, practice teaching is little more than a formality and the quality of faculty is suspect.
At the core of a good education system is the good, dedicated, capable teacher. The teachers who teaches English, History or Science, but first teaches children. Who loves her pupils, loves teaching, knows her subjects and has the requisite teaching skills.
In a regular 1 year B.Ed. programme, students teach for about 30 days in a year. At Eklavya, they spend three hours almost every day observing and teaching in a partner school for two years.
Practical training is supported by classes which include a variety of instructional methods like case studies, excursions, projects, seminars and meetings with practising education professionals. The curriculum is a modern one designed on internationally accepted lines after studying leading teacher education programmes in India and abroad.
Students are exposed to computers and the Internet from day one. Apart from this, one hour everyday is set aside for activities like Personality Development, Yoga, Art, Craft and Music/Dance.
Finally, attitudinal training
is a key component of the programme. Enthusiasm can move mountains, and
more can be achieved by a group of positive-minded, enthusiastic teachers
than merely capable ones
