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Improving teacher’s training programme for secondary education

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S M Rayhanul Islam:
Quality education is a prerequisite to sustainable human resource development as well as economic growth. For imparting quality education qualified teachers play the essential role. To ensure the quality of teachers, it is essential to recruit qualified teachers through transparent and scientific recruit process on one hand, and on the other, quality teacher's training is vital to enhance the professional excellence of the teachers. Training helps a teacher to acquire applied knowledge and skills in the strategies of teaching-learning effectively. A teacher can develop and update his/her professional knowledge through teacher's training. Quality teacher's training also helps teachers to develop their personality, innovative knowledge and qualities of leadership, and to encourage them to acquire efficiency to use the modern materials and educational methods for teaching-learning. To inspire the teachers to be conscious of their duties and responsibilities and to enrich their quality to analyze problems and to take decisions, teacher's training plays an effective role.
Secondary education is a very important sector in Bangladesh as about 10 million students are getting education through 20 thousand secondary schools. But the existing teacher's training system for secondary school teachers of our country is very traditional, insufficient, certificate-based, loaded with theoretical knowledge, incomplete in practical learning, based in rote learning and conventional evaluation system. With a view to training the secondary school teachers and to create new teachers, Govt. Teacher's Training College, Dhaka (the 1st teacher's training college in the region) started its journey in 1909. It offers 1-year B.Ed, 1-year M.Ed and 4-year B.Ed (Hons.) degrees under National University of Bangladesh. To meet the growing demand of secondary school teacher's training, at present 14 govt. teacher's training college and 106 non-government teachers's training college are offering B.Ed course. Dhaka University's Institute of Education and Research (IER) offers 4-year B'Ed (Hons.), M.Ed, M.Phil & PhD degrees in Education. Bangladesh Open University also offers B.Ed and M.Ed courses through distance mode. Some private universities are also offering B.Ed and M.Ed courses. The infrastructure, quality of training system, contents taught in all these institutions except the IER of Dhaka University are, to a large extent, of below standard.
The govt. teacher's training colleges are facing a big problem as the students (B.Ed trainees) have decreased surprisingly over the last 2 decades. "In 2007-2008 session, the 14 govt. teacher's training college had the capacity to accommodate 7,215 B.Ed trainees. But these colleges total enrolment was only 1,658 that year. The major cause behind the scene was students were tend to get a B.Ed certificate without much efforts and they were getting these opportunities from the private universities as well as non-government teacher's training colleges." - said Professor S M Abu Sayeed, the vice-principal of Govt. Teacher's Training College, Dhaka.
It is true that no extensive research has been conducted to identify the real problems of the ongoing B.Ed program in these colleges. But some media reports and an investigation of National University tell us that the overall situations of these private teacher's training colleges are very low standard. Hardly, there is any academic atmosphere in these colleges and many are alleged for selling certificates through money. In the meantime National University tried to close 38 colleges, but failed as these colleges got a stay order from the honorable High Court. The B.Ed and M.Ed programs of the private universities are not up to the mark. Here, many can get certificates without proper education and training.
As the teacher is the most important element in improving the quality of secondary education, a comprehensive teacher's training program should be ensured. Standard teaching-learning environment should be created in all training institutes. Teacher's training program should be made more realistic and effective. The curriculum and syllabus for the secondary school teacher's training program should be upgraded in accordance with national and global needs. ICT based instructions and learning should be emphasized. Like IER, more public universities should come forward to initiate training programs for the newly appointed secondary school teachers as well as fresh graduates interested to become teachers.
Teachers' Organization can play a vital role in upgrading the standard of the teachers by taking various initiatives. It is high time our Govt. take necessary steps to make the secondary teacher's training program meaningful and effective.

 (The writer is an independent researcher. He can be reached at: E-mail- rayhanulislam@gmail.com)