Recent Initiatives in Teacher Education

Our imperfect world is advancing relentlessly towards uncertain future scenarios, and we must try to redirect it towards sustainability, that is, towards a new way of doing things in order to improve our environment while at the same time achieving justice, social equality and economic stability; however, the change is impossible without learning. Teachers are considered to be, gurus. Guru’s role is of higher ecstasy. In order to serve the society this is the best way to teach. A teacher is a great personality if he/she renders her/his job perfectly. Teachers are the creators of the society. Society provides all the facilities to the teachers. There are various courses and programmes to promote and train the teachers in order to make great citizens .It’s a noble profession. The teachers must be trained properly. There are various techniques and methods of teaching, innovations in teaching all these come with the training. Teacher education in India can be divided into two broad areas - pre-service education that is focused on preparing students for a career in teaching and in-service teacher training that is provided by the government through the SarvaShiksha Abhiyan (SSA) or NGOs and social enterprises. The focal importance of teacher in the total educative process is not new to educational thinking. Nevertheless, with the changes in theory and practice of education, the concept of teacher preparation has undergone a considerable change. With the advent of a broader concept of education including within its fold the total personality of the educand and aiming at his all-round development, the functions and responsibilities of the teacher have increased manifold. There has, therefore, been a shift in the character of teacher preparation from one of apprenticeship to one suited to a profession.  The replacement of the word 'education' for 'training in recent years in connection with the preparation of teachers is implicitly analytical of this shift in stress, Teacher education, therefore, is a term rather recent in its origin. In the broader sense 'teacher education' refers to the total of educative the focal importance of teacher in the total educative process is not new to educational thinking,  but, with the changes in theory and practice of education, the concept of teacher preparation has undergone a considerable change. With the advent of a broader concept of education including within its fold the total personality of the educand and aiming at his all-round development, the functions and responsibilities of the teacher have increased manifold. There has, therefore, been a shift in the character of teacher preparation from one of apprenticeship to one suited to a profession. The substitution of the word 'education' for 'training/ in recent years in connection with the preparation of teachers is implicitly indicative of this shift in emphasis, Teacher education, therefore, is a term rather recent in its origin. In the broader sense, 'teacher education' refers to the total of educative experience. This contributes to the preparation of a person for a teaching position in schools, but the term is more commonly employed to designate the programme of courses and other experiences offered by an educational institute for the announced purpose of preparing persons for teaching and other educational service and for contributing to their growth in competency for such service. Such teacher education programmes are offered in teacher's 2 colleges and normal schools and in colleges and universities. This paper highlights the various new initiatives that the government has taken. It also focuses on the rethinking of the teacher Training programmes. This   paper also throws light on recent scenario of the education system. It also suggests improvement measures needed for the teacher education.