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?
It would be great as Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) is the only university that actually has access to every nook and corner of Pakistan. As far as Rawalpindi is concerned, which is my geographical area, it is the city of resources. Internet is available at cheap rates across the city and there are places that are open 24-hours. So the proposed strategy is workable. However, there are several challenges or should I say the ground realities that need to be focused before initiating such a proposal.
ReplyDeleteThe first and the foremost is the electricity crisis that the country is going through. I don’t know how to manage online courses and how much it would be difficult for students and tutors to stay in touch in such a situation.
Second, it cannot be assumed that students who enroll in AIOU have access to computers at home. If they have computers, the whether they would have access to internet. Thought PTCL (Pakistan Telecommunication Limited) does offer cheap internet access but we all know that it hardly works.
Third, internet clubs are available as I said before. But we all know that many parents would not allow their daughters to go to internet clubs to do assignments. And AIOU has a large female population to cater.
Last, the other reality attached to AIOU is that many students enrolled belong to middle social class economically. Using internet or going to internet clubs might add additional financial constraints on families.
It is a wonderful initiative and can bring miraculous results. One of the beneficial outcomes is online teacher education program would serve as a model for technological intervention for students-teachers. Having seen a modal would facilitate future teachers to use technology in their classrooms. Technology based interventions and modern trends would replace (or modify) some traditional patterns. This technology-based intervention in teacher education program would serve as a window to the contemporary trends in vogue. Moreover, it could be an effectively tool to manage issues such as motivation and investment of student-teachers in teacher education programs. Not to forget, the goals of strengthening multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multi-lingual component of teacher education program can be greatly supported by careful planning of on-line teacher education programs.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I agree with the concern raised by Samina. Though I belong to Punjab, these problems exist in all the provinces with varied degree of intensity. Implementation of any such program (or even intervention) would further accelerate power, equity and access issues the problems pointed out by Samina are addressed positively.
I would say the implementation of this plan seems to neglect the geographical diversity in terms of availability of certain resources, and cultural patterns. Well, in my area the Khyber Pakhtoon Khawa, most of the areas are still underdeveloped and have problem of acute shortage of electricity, and non-availability of internet. I wonder what mechanisms do the planner of online courses have in order to address these problem .Because I believe without considering or resolving such problems on a large scale ,this effort of long distance or online education will be another futile practice. Cultural patterns of these areas are quite different from other areas of Pakistan, as people of this area have certain restrictions and reserved attitude towards female education. But to some extent this issue can be resolved by opening separate internet clubs or centers for education for male and female students.
ReplyDeleteBeing a teacher educator, most important aspect for me is to consider how effective this plan of two year online courses will be in achieving its goals that is to improve teaching practices. For me, monitoring is a big challenge how it will be ensured that all enrolled students are regularly visiting or attending the class and whatever they are learning is also affecting their pedagogical practices. My second major concern regarding effectiveness of this program is that to what extent these courses will be adaptable to classroom needs and challenges of different areas? How these online courses will help teachers to talk about and reflect their daily class room practices? In order words to what extent it might help teachers to resolve their daily class room challenges and problems? As, in an interactive class room students have opportunities to interact with other prospective teachers, teacher educators and have opportunity to share multiple perspectives and think about their teaching problems. While online course seems to limit the educational opportunities of prospective teachers by restricting their learning to just one mode or source of information.
Technology based teacher education appears to be very progressive and attractive - especially in an era when the world is chanting the slogans of go green and be paper-free. It is however important to see how this will work in reality. While keeping all the materialistic challenges raised by Sam and Sadaf and the pedagogical and accountability concerns discussed by Andleeb in view, my question is basic 'what and how to teach teachers online'? especially when it involves four year education. As we all are aware, online setups involve different kind of material and pedagogy by the teachers. How much our teacher educators themselves are familiar with the net-based teaching practices? Also, four year is a pretty longer period of time - what kind of online strategies can be useful to engage student teachers in a meaningful way for such a long period of time? I think it is a question of policy planners to address this part before launching this type of program and see how to address these. Another important concern of mine being a part of remote area of Pakistan remain there - how far this practice can be useful for the less resourceful people in terms technology and practices? I think blog needs to define the kind of audiences/interns, this kind of program aims to cater to and whether or not this is going to be used as a replacement of the traditional programs and with what specific purposes?
ReplyDeleteI have been the student of B.Ed program in AIOU and I have earned my MA and M.Phil from AIOU as well. I have been working as a teacher and principal/head master for almost ten years both in private and government sector. I have observed many teachers and I classify them in two categories.
ReplyDelete1. those who don't have professional education but work as a teacher and most of them are employed by private sector.
2. those who have professional education like PTC,CT , B.Ed or M.Ed ;and I even classify them into categories,1) those educated by distance education ( mostly AIOU graduates) and,2) those who have got their professional education from regular teacher education institutions like Elementary colleges,RITEs or PITEs.
My observation ( one can disagree but majority of my colleagues agree with me) is AIOU's graduates usually get a piece of paper known as a teaching certificate or degree if they manage, in anyway, to write assignments ( most of the time written by others) and could sit in exam hall for 3 hours writing anything.
I believe that AIOU has played a significant role in deteriorating the educational standards especially in TE.Those who get professional teaching degrees from AIOU are not at all good either in educational theory or in any teaching skills. Can teaching skills be learned through distance education system, it's still open to wide academic debate.
(I may seem pessimistic but I am a practitioner of education rather than a university professor, and so I have observations on daily basis about how AIOU trained (trained for nothing or trained for copying assignments) fail to perform as a teacher in class room situations.
Online education is a refinement of distance education, and I am of the view that AIOU must not be allowed to offer any professional teacher education programs as it has already done a big damage to our public sector education by becoming a diploma mill.
Dear Former Pakistani,
ReplyDeleteInteresting! First you said, "I have been the student of B.Ed program in AIOU and I have earned my MA and M.Phil from AIOU as well. I have been working as a teacher and principal/head master for almost ten years both in private and government sector." You then added, "Those who get professional teaching degrees [which includes you & me too, I guess] from AIOU are not at all good either in educational theory or in any teaching skills."
So here are the questions: In which category (as per your classification) do you consider yourself? What did you learn from AIOU? Also from your comments, I assume that you're well educated, sincere, very dedicated and that you know the system well. But did you try to be a part of the system and to add some credibility to the system? In the capacity of a principal, what were you inputs to improve teaching skills of teachers who worked under your administration?
I have been a practitioner for 13 years in a secondary school. I EARNED my B.Ed. M.Ed, M.Sc in Mass communication and course work of M.Phil (Mass comm) from AIOU. I had tutors who would not read my assignment and gave me marks on the basis of the number of sheets I had utilized or asked me to come to their place to collect assignments. I know the system as you do but I became a tutor to play my role to add to the credibility of the institution, because I believe that if everyone of us who knows what it takes to improve education, plays his/her part in whatever capacity we work in, we can make a difference!
We know the shortcomings but we need people who are ready to use their energies and expertise to take initiatives for improving education system in Pakistan. No one from outside or other countries would do it. We who live there would have to understand and have to come forward.
Current Pakistani and a Faculty at Dept. of Education, FJWU