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Unit 3: Types of Teacher Education—In-service, Pre-service, Distance

(iii) It is not clear what specific steps, NCTE or NCERT has taken so far to implement the Resolutions Notes
passed by NCTE from time to time for generally putting and end to correspondence courses
by way of formally taking up the matter with UGC and Universities/State Government
concerned.
2. Concerns of UGC and NCTE: The views of the UGC with regard to distance/correspondence
education in general are evident from the following statement.
"The Commission has been supporting the programmes of distance/correspondence course with a
view to providing a new stream of educaiton to enable large number of persons with necessary
aptitude to acquire further knowledge and improve their professional competence."
UGC shifted its point of view considerable in the eighties basing it on the working of the
correspondence courses and on the advice of the NCTE.
The NCTE appointed a committee in 1980 to ascertain the quality of B.Ed. programmes offered
through correspondence in several universities. After looking into the operational aspect of these
programmes, especially the practice teaching component the committee recommended that the
programmes be confined to the respective states in which the universities concerned operate, that
the programmes through correspondence-cum-contact mode be offered only to clear the backlog of
untrained secondary and primary teachers and that the first degree in professional preparation of
secondary school teachers be obtained only through a formal course. It needs to be mentioned here
that of the ten recommendations made by the committee, recommends the correspondence mode
for a specific purpose (to remove the backlog), propose to stop it altogether and seven recommend
reforms to make the system effective. Interestingly, the seven reformative recommendations do
not seem to have made any impact, or if any step was taken to implement those reform it has
generally not succeeded.
At this, among other things, the Government of India sent a query to the NCTE. This was done in
July 1988.
3. Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and its Role in Teacher Education: According
to the IGNOU Act (1985), IGNOU has been given the dual mandate of functioning:
(i) as a university to 'provide opportunities for higher education to a large segment of the
population and to promote the education well being the community' and
(ii) as an apex body 'to encourage the Open University and distance education system in the
educational pattern of the country and to co-ordinate and determine the standards in such
system'.
IGNOU University has yet to take change of the distance education programmes of the conventional
universities as the second objective listed above is concerned. The general quality of the teacher
education programmes given through the distance mode, the view and recommendations of the
NCTE and the actions initiated by the UGC, IGNOU is expected to, and it must take appropriate
steps with regard to teacher education programmes in anticipation of her assuming the role of co-
ordination and determination of standards all over the country.
Accordingly, IGNOU may take the following steps with regard to the issue under considerations.
1. IGNOU may not consider imposing a blanket on B.Ed. programmes through correspondence.
Indeed, it will be a setback for Indian Education if a newly accepted, powerful and potent
mode of education barred from being used in a specific area of knowledge because of lapses on
the part of some users.
2. It will be desirable for IGNOU to endeavour to take a leader's role an demonstrate how these
programmes may be run to the satisfaction of the academics in general and the NCTE in
particular, as IGNOU cannot afford to accept the degradation of a system which she has to
foster by virtue of the very mandate that brought her into being. IGNOU shall attempt to
achieve this objective by strict positive measures—such as implementing forthwith the
reformation recommendations made by the NCET Committee in 1990. Interestingly, most of
the recommendations and guidelines as they appear in the report of the Committee constitute
a part and the implementational scheme of the IGNOU courses on teacher education.
3. IGNOU proposes to launch a variety of teacher education courses at various levels of instruction
in years to come as a continuing education programme.

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