Page 222 - DEDU501_DEVELOPMENT_OF_EDUCATION_SYSTEM_ENGLISH

Development of Education System

Notes unplanned and uncared for, calls for thoughtful planning of training sequences relevant to the
developmental needs of early childhood interwoven with commonalities and specificities.
Specific Objectives : The objectives of teacher education specific to early childhood include the
following:
• to prepare teachers for facilitating physical, mental, moral, social, aesthetic and linguistic
development of children
• to acquaint them with the knowledge of child psychology
• to cultivate social sensitivity, affection for children and respect for their uniqueness
• to acquaint them with techniques of caring for children and enable them to identify their
needs
• to provide experiences and organise activities that promote children's self-concept, creativity
and inventiveness
• to enable them to select, prepare and use different kinds of resource materials
• to develop a sense of involvement with and appreciation of local resources (human and
material) and their utilisation
• to develop an acquaintance with basics of Scientific and Technological Literacy
• to develop a repertoire of children's games, songs and literature
• to empower student-teachers towards creating learning readiness among young learners
Curriculum Framework : The following curriculum framework is suggested for formulating a
Plan of Action for developing programmes and activities, devising strategies of negotiating the
curricular inputs and methods of obtaining feed-back. These are pre-requisites for improving
the interaction processes directed towards the realisation of optimum enrichment of experiences
at the early childhood stage.

The framework given here is suggestive and not a prescriptive one. It has
considerable space for flexibility, innovation and use of locally available
community resources.

Elementary Teacher Education Curriculum Framework: The constitutional provision of providing
free and compulsory education to all children upto 14 years of age includes both the lower
primary and upper primary classes, that is from class I to class VIII. There seems to be a
compelling need for having multiple models for preparing teachers - for primary and upper
primary classes. Incidentally, in a number of Elementary Teacher Education Institutions (ETEIs)
in the country, the nomenclature of the training programme from pre-service training of primary
school teachers has been changed to pre-service training of elementary school teachers. But in
actuality, the transformation in programmes has yet to take place effectively.
There are three distinct possibilities of designing courses in teacher education for elementary
stage:
• Teacher education programme exclusively for primary school stage (Classes I to V).
• Teacher education programme for elementary school stage (Classes I to VIII).
• Teacher education programme exclusively for upper primary school stage (Classes VI to
VIII).
In view of the requirements of Universal Primary Education and Universal Elementary Education,
only the first two alternatives are being recommended. However, the third suggested above,
could be attempted by offering credit oriented modular courses after successful completion of
primary teacher education programmes. It is significant to note that we have nearly 5.98 lakh
primary schools which are mostly in rural areas as compared to upper primary schools
numbering about 1.76 lakhs only*.

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