Page 121 - DEDU505_TEACHER_EDUCATION_ENGLISH

Unit 11: Agencies of Teacher Education and their Functions—Academic Staff College

• The Orientation programmes are of four week duration constituting 144 contact hours for Notes
newly appointed Lecturers of the Universities and Colleges.
• The orientation programmes emphasizes that teachers are agents of socioeconomic change
and national development and underlines the need to make them skill–oriented teachers.
• The refresher courses are of three week duration constituting 108 contact hours for serving
teachers of Universities and Colleges. Interaction programs for research scholars and Post-
Doctoral fellows are introduced recently under this scheme. Purpose of these programmes is
to provide a platform to exchange experiences with their peers and mutually learning from
each others, it also helps teachers/research scholars to keep abreast of the latest advances in
various subjects.
• Each ASC organizes one or two meetings of 2-days duration in a year for principals/ Heads/
Deans/Officials of Collegiate Education/administrative officers including UGC officials with
an objective to:
• Professional Development programmes for Senior Teachers like Associate Professors and
Professors:
• To encourage their participation in professional development programmes, new pay
commission has given certain points as incentive for their career advancement.
• There are about 5.00 lakh teachers working in higher education system.
• Similarly, refresher courses are meant for experienced teachers, either in their own subject or
interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary subjects. A total of about 7992 refresher courses have been
conducted by different ASCs in India.
• The activities of Academic Staff Colleges and their programmes have been evaluated by
University Grants Commission through expert committees almost after the end of every plan
period.
• The ultimate goal of the ASC programmes is to contribute to quality of higher education in
the country by enhancing competence of the teachers. To understand whether this scheme
is fulfilling its objective, there have been number of studies carried out by researchers and
Academic Staff Colleges to study impact of ASC programmes on participants.

11.9 Keywords

• Refresher : A short period of training to improve your skills or to teach you about new
ideas and development in your job.
• Academic : Connected with education.
• Orientation : Towards something the type of aims or interests that a person or an
organization.

11.10 Review Questions

1. Write a note on higher education of India.
2. Explain the functional aspects of academic staff college.
3. Colleges discribe the programmes conducted by ASCS.
4. What is the role of ASCS in staff training programmes?

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 115