Teacher education is internationally divided into two phases – pre-service and in-service. The two phases are considered as parts of a continuous process (Rasul, 2000). The recently launched $75 million Pre-service Teacher Education Program - Pre-STEP is working to enhance the quality of basic education in Pakistan through improved teacher education by strengthening the institutions that provide pre-service teacher education. The program is directly to impact the new and practicing teachers by helping them gain revised and upgraded teacher qualifications (USAID, 2009). This is a five year program which will hopefully bring major changes in the teacher education as well as professional development practices in Pakistan.
Pre-STEP project initiated a new scheme of studies for four year degree of teacher education. It has been planned and launched in four institutions as pilot. Within the new four year program of teacher education, one of the issues is to retain the prospective candidates for four years in colleges. It has been proposed that after two/three years they will be able to begin teaching and then continue their program later. Further details are not yet decided. If the teachers begin teaching and still require to complete the four year degree program, one of the options can be to use the distance education mode. Allama Iqbal Open University is already offering teacher education programs through distance education, all over Pakistan. But it does not use online teaching and learning.
The new scheme of four year program is also being adopted by Allama Iqbal Open University. This can also be taken as an experiment to use technology for offering online teacher education courses. Allama Iqbal Open University is already offering online courses in some other fields. Same or similar model can be adopted for offering the online courses in teacher education program. Specifically once teachers begin teaching they can be offered further courses online. The tutors in all regions can support the distance education mode as they already do.
This is a proposed strategy to be experimented. But before its experimentation distance educators need to identify the challenges and issues that might hinder the process of continuing teacher education and professional development through online learning. Once the issues and challenges are identified only then the solutions can be developed for further planning and implementation.
Please give your views and comments about the proposed strategy of offering online courses in teacher education. What are the prospects of this strategy to be implemented in your geographical area? Do you think a complete online program or after initial two years will be workable for your specific region / province? What major issues and challenges can hinder successful implementation?
