Teacher Education in Tanzania -

Inovations and Best Practices

Mrs. Rose Massenga*

Introduction
Since independence in 1961, Tanzania has been implementing a number of reforms.
In 1980s there was a shift of policy from that of 1960s and 1970s which placed
strong reliance on government central of economy and public sector to that which
advocates increased role of the private sector and liberalization of and other
systems.

The 1990s have been characterized by political changes from single party system to
multi-party system with general democratic participation and liberalization of key
markets, which called for greater private sector participation. On the whole the
government has continued to give priority to both education and health generally
social sectors, and increased participation of the private sector while it checks
the expansion of its activities.

This shift has influenced the form and direction of social service policies, which
paved way to the growth of private social service providers in the country. The
government is now changing its role from a key player to that of policy formulation
and facilitation in the provision of social services.

Tanzania has short and long term development plans, which include Development
Vision 2025. There is also a local government reform program, which focuses on
performance improvement in the delivery of goods and services at local level. One
of the pillars in the implementation of these initiatives is to have a well educated
and informed society. For this reason education is treated as a strategic agent for
mindset transformation and creation of a well educated nation sufficiently equipped
with knowledge needed to solve the development challenges which face the nation.

All of these developments and decisions have necessitated the adoption of innovative
approaches to the education system. This paper attempts to review major
educational innovations in Tanzania and tries to alienate best practices which
emanated from the innovations. The paper also draws lessons learned from the
teacher education innovations with a view to improve quality of education in the
country. The paper provides past and current specific teacher education innovations
and their impact in the education system.

The School System in Tanzania

The schooling structure in Tanzania consists of formal and non-formal systems.
The formal education system is 2-7-4-2-3+. That is pre-primary (2 years), Primary

* Director, Teacher Education, Ministry of Education & Culture, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

121
standard I – VII, (7 years), four years of lower secondary education, form 1 – 4 (O –
Level), advanced secondary education (2 years) and three, four or five years of
university education depending on the course. Primary education is compulsory
and universal, and the official age to start primary education is seven years. In
primary education the medium of instruction is Kiswahili which is the official and
national language of Tanzania. At secondary education and higher levels of education
the medium of instruction is English.

At the end of primary education pupils sit for the Standard 7 Primary School Leaving
Examination. The examination is used for selection to go on to public secondary
schools using quota system. However, depending on vacancies available those who
could afford the fees can, as an alternative, join private secondary schools. At the
fourth year of lower secondary education secondary students take the Ordinary
Level Secondary Education Examination, and depending on the vacancies available,
those who pass well in the examination enroll in Advanced Level. The others can
join tertiary institutions like teacher education, nursing, full technician certificate
courses and so on. Finally, after two years of A-level secondary education the
students sit for Advanced Level Secondary Education Examinations. Those who pass
well enroll at institutions of higher learning such as the university, or professional
institutions such as the Institute of Finance Management, Institute of Development
Management, and many others.

Management and Organization

In Tanzania the management and administration of the education sector as a whole
is a shared responsibility among the three ministries. Primary education, adult
literacy and other non-formal education is managed by Ministry of Regional
Administration and Local Government, while Ministry of Education and Culture has
a responsibility of policy formulation, coordination and evaluation. The Ministry of
Education and Culture manages secondary and teacher education and provides
school inspection services. The Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher
Education is responsible for postsecondary education.

Institutions which are directly involved in the education sector include the Tanzania
Institute of Education (TIE), the National Examinations Council of Tanzania (NECTA),
the Teacher Service Commission (TSC) Institute of Adult Education, and Commission
for Science and Technology.

The Position of Teacher Training in Tanzania

Teacher education in Tanzania is managed by at least three ministries. The Ministry
of Education and Culture manages a network of 34 government teachers colleges
and provide guidance to 13 privately owned ones. The Ministry of Science,
Technology and Higher Education Manages university based teacher education.
The Ministry of Labour, Youth and Sports Development manages vocational education
and training.

122
Past Innovations and Experiences
Tanzania has since independence made deliberate changes in the education system
so that it can respond to her vision of socialism and Self – Reliance. In line with
this, Education for Self – Reliance (ESR) was introduced. Among the fundamental
principle of the ESR was the organization of the school. It directs that schools be
converted into assorted economic and education communities which would be to
a considerable extent, self-reliant. Each school would eventually contribute to
national development and national self-reliance. ESR was meant to impart among
the pupils knowledge and skills, which will help them and society at large to shake
off the shackles of poverty, ignorance and disease and bring about political and
economic growth and freedom.

ESR was the first significant change in the goals and objectives of education in
Tanzania. These change necessitated reforms in the school curriculum and teacher
training among others. Following these reforms there was need to retrain teachers
to respond to the reforms in the school curriculum. Thus, the government
introduced a Primary Education Reform Program which involved re-training of
teachers under the popularly known Tanzania UNICEF – UNESCO Program (MTUU).

Through MTUU a number of teachers were re trained. In the beginning the

programme was conducted in two phases, correspondence course for one year
followed by one year residential course at teachers colleges. Later it was found
that the program was not strong enough to meet the national goals of providing in-
service courses for all the serving teachers. Thus a new in-service program was
introduced under MTUU. This involved all primary school teachers. The teachers
were re-trained in teachers colleges for two weeks in phases. In each college
there were itinerant tutors.

UPE Efforts
In 1969 the target for Universal Primary Education (UPE) Was set for 1989 but in 1974
it was declared to be implemented over a period of three years. This called for
almost doubling the number of children entering grade one and consequently
increasing the number of teachers in primary schools.

The teacher education had to train Grade A teachers whose course of instruction
was two years in college following one year at the college and the second in the
field instead of three years. At the same time distant teacher training was
introduced for primary school teachers. These teachers were trained in the villages
to meet the demand of the enrollment and the new schools which were built.

Experience shows that enrolments in primary schools rose to more than 85 percent
of the school age children (NER) by 1977. However this achievement was not
sustained. By the year 1999 the NER has dropped to 57 percent. (MOEC, 2003:9).
It was also realized that the professional and academic level of primary teaching
force was generally low. This became more evident as more than 60 percent of
primary school teachers were grade B or C who were themselves primary school
graduants.

123
Current Education Reforms in Tanzania
A review of the education system in 1990 recommended a suitable education system
for the twenty first century. At the same time the government introduced a macro-
policy, which emphasized, liberalization of the economy, increased role of the
private sector, provision essential resources to priority areas, increased investment
in infrastructure and social sectors, and introduction of cost-sharing measures.
These changes necessitated a review and restructuring of the education system.
In this regard the government developed the 1995 Education and Training Policy
(ETP 1995). The policy document is intended to guide future development and
provision of education and training in the country.

To operationalize the policy; in 1998 the Ministry of Education and Culture

introduced Education Sector Development Program (ESDP 1998) which is a sector
wide strategy to address problems and issues in the education sector. The program
is intended to enhance effectiveness, efficiency and ensuring government
ownership, control and provision of leadership. The ESDP derives its objectives
from the ETP, which include improving the quality of education , increased access
and equity for all children, decentralization of management structures, devolution
of authority to local levels and a broadening of the financial base, which supports
the education system.

The primary Education Development Plan (PEDP) 2002 - 2006 is built within a wider
policy framework, which includes the Education and Training Policy, Education
Sector Development Program, the Local Government Reform Program, and the
National Poverty Eradication Strategy as well as the Tanzania Development Vision
2025. The PEDP consists of four main components namely expanding enrollment,
improving the quality of teaching and learning, building capacity within the education
system and other stakeholders as well as strengthening the institutional
arrangements that support the planning and delivery of education services. In
general PEDP takes measured enrolment steps so as to achieve Universal Primary
Education (UPE). PEDP achievements have started being have realized. By the year
2003 the Gross Enrollment Rate for Standard one (GER) stood at 105.3 percent and
NER at 88.5 percent. This achievement is a result of a combination of innovations
in the education system including teacher education.

Teacher Education Innovations

Teacher training in Tanzania is set to respond to current demands in the country.
Currently the first priority is to increase the number of primary school teachers to
respond to the increase in the enrolment in grade one following implementation of
EFA goals, which requires all school age going children to be enrolled and stay in
school and expanded secondary education. The government also intends to improve
the quality of education in general as required by the 1995 Education and Training
Policy. In this regard continuous professional development of teachers and tutors
is a priority in the quality improvement of education in the immediate and long
term future. At the same time the government intend to improve the teaching and
learning environment in teacher training institutions as well as in schools as a
matter of priority.

124
Pre-service Teacher Preparation
Teachers for primary schools are trained in teacher’s colleges. These are mainly
grade A (Form IV plus two year in college). Teachers for primary school consist of
Grade C/B teachers (Standard VII leavers with two to four years of teachers training).
Training of Grade B teachers has ceased since 1996. However, their number in
primary schools is large (about 50 percent of the teaching force). The minimum
admission requirement for the teacher education certificate course is Division III
of the certificate of secondary examination. The situation indicates that the majority
of the current teaching force in primary schools is under-qualified, as the Education
and Training Policy (1995) requires a minimum of Grade A certificate for primary-
school teachers.

In response to the Primary Education Development Plan which focuses on UPE, a

number of innovations have been introduced in the pre-service teacher training.
Instead of two year college based training, the government has introduced a two-
tier system to prepare grade A teachers for primary schools. However it should be
realized that opinions about who can be a teacher and how the teacher should be
prepared or trained differ widely (Clenn, 2001:5) Some might contend that a teacher
needs sound preparation in the arts and sciences together with pedagogical
knowledge grounded in a school – based experience. Others might believe that
preparations in the arts and sciences are sufficient, and additional training ought
to take place in school setting apart from the college.

In the case of Tanzania, Primary school teachers are specializing in four teaching
subjects taught at primary schools instead of all primary school subjects. The two-
tier system involves all the teacher education stakeholders. After one year college
based training only those who have passed the national examination are posted to
schools as internship students and are placed in the teachers pay roll but receiving
special allowance and are under mentorship support of identified school teachers.

During the one year in the field, the trainees are assisted and assessed by, the
headteacher, Ward Education Coordinators, school Inspectors, District Academic
officers and tutors. The assessments are put together with a trainees take home
assignment and the trainees are awarded final grade. Those successful are given
Grade A Teachers certificate. Although the first batch of the two-tier system have
not graduated, the monitoring of the trainees reports indicate that the trainees
are doing well and they are not in any way like the former UPE teachers of the
1970s. This system has enabled the Teacher Education to train teachers according
to PEDP targets. According to PEDP the following are new teacher recruitment targets:

Table 1: Primary School Teachers Recruitment Targets

2002 : 9,047
2003 : 11,651
2004 : 10,563
2005 : 7,286
2006 : 7,249 Source: (MOEC, 2001:6)

125
Using the two-tier system the Ministry intends to improve the current PtR of 1:57
to the required norm of 1:40 by 2006 (MOEC, 2003).

In-Service Teacher Training

Teacher professional development constitutes an important element for quality
teaching. Thus, as stated clearly in the 1995 Education and Training Policy in-
service training and re-training shall be compulsory in order to ensure teacher
quality and professionalism. The current teaching in primary schools has been
found to be very close to the book and examination oriented. Shortage of
resources, including books and other teaching/learning resources, in the classrooms,
pose a serious problem. The teaching/learning environment also poses a problem.
Large classes in urban areas, resulting in poor teacher/pupil interaction coupled
with gender blind teaching and lack of supervision aggravates the situation.

The Ministry of Education and Culture has reviewed the school curriculum in order
that it meets the new policy requirements, focusing on the teaching of languages,
science and technology, humanities and life-skills guided by identified competences.
These fields are required to permeate throughout the pre-primary, primary,
secondary and teacher education levels. English demands orientation for all teachers
so that they can respond positively to the objectives of the current education and
training at various levels.

The policy has led to high demand for in-service teacher training at all levels.
Table 2 shows that the number of primary-school teachers all of whom apparently
need in-service training has been increasing. Last year the number was 114660.
For the immediate, it shows that 52764 (46 per cent) teachers need to be up-
graded to Grade A level.

Table 2 : Trends in Teaching Staff in Primary Schools and Number of schools

Year Teaching staff Number of

schools (Public)
Male Female Total

1999 56764 46967 103731 11377

2000 58905 48206 107111 11608
2001 58033 47889 105921 11799
2002 60444 51665 112109 12152
2003 61854 52806 114660 12649

Extracts from Basic Statistics in Education 1999-2003

The reintroduction of UPE and changed focus on education has necessitated that
in-service programmes should not take away teachers from their schools. In this
regard, residential In-service courses have been deemed inadequate, Instead school
based Continuous Professional Development (CPD) of teachers has been introduced.
This programme involves preparation of modules and training of facilitators. These
facilitators are normally excelled teachers in different subjects taught in primary

126
schools. These get professional support from teachers colleges through mentorship
system. Each teachers college is assigned an area/districts for mentorship. In this
way CPD is provided at all levels which include Teachers Resource Centres (TRCs),
Ward centers and school level.

Challenges of Up-grading Teachers: The case of Grade B/C Teachers

Grade B/C teachers have been up-grading themselves to grade A through different
steps. There was a time when the grade B/C teachers were required first to up
grade themselves academically to form IV level secondary education (C-O) and then
professionally to grade A in teachers colleges (C-A). To up-grade academically, the
teachers enrolled themselves in teachers colleges, Distance education, teachers’
resources-centers and in other NGOs that provided academic support to secondary
“O” level.

However, in the year 2000 it was realized that most of the teachers failed in the
national form four examinations. Furthermore, those who joined teachers colleges
to up-grade themselves professionally did not acquire professional skills to bring
impact in the teaching and learning in primary schools. In a nutshell the system of
up-grading the grade B/C teachers was found to have the following shortcomings:

Most of the teachers failed to achieve significant academic and professional

development

The up-grading system did not put emphasis on teaching and learning
methods

The system drew away teachers from the schools for a long time, adversely
affecting teaching and learning in schools

The grade B/C teachers who graduated through the system could not
demonstrate adequate knowledge and skills in the classroom teaching and
learning

Above all the system was found to be inefficient as indicated by a large number of
grade B/C teachers (50,000) who were still teaching in primary schools contrary to
the Education and Training Policy (1995) which requires every primary school teacher
to be a holder of at least grade A teacher certificate. In connection with this as
the government introduced Primary Education Development Plan (PEDP) from January
2002 new efforts to improve the quality of primary education were invented.

In realization of the shortcomings of the former system and PEDP objectives, the
Ministry of Education and Culture abolished the system of C-O and then C-A through
Education circular No. 10 of 2002 dated 10/4/2002. Instead the Ministry Introduced
a new system of upgrading grade B/C teachers to grade A that includes the following:

127
 - The course is offered through open and distance mode using modular
approach followed by face-to-face sessions.

- Face-to-face sessions are conducted during primary school vacations in

teachers colleges or other centers, which are accessible for the teachers.

- The teachers are required to read and learn 16 self instructional modules
divided in 26 units. The teachers are supposed to do exercises in the
modules and submit special assignments for making and sit for national
examinations.

- Face-to-face sessions are conducted after every six months and teaching
practice is conducted once per year.

Implementation of the program started with preparation of curriculum for the

course as well as 16 modules. These activities were conducted in collaboration
with Tanzania Institute of Education.

Pedagogy Innovations through INSET: The case of Active Learning in Tanzania

During the early 1970s experiments were made on standards I and II teachers and
pupils. Success in the project enabled the then Ministry of Education to formulate
three months in-service courses for teachers teaching reading, writing and
arithmetic (3Rs). In 1981 the Ministry of Education through Swedish support launched
a series of In-service courses which were radically different from the traditional
ones of one to four weeks seminars and workshops organized under UNICEF-UNESCO
and Tanzania government joint reform program for primary education (MTUU), the
duration of the new courses was three months residential training. The range of
subjects and content was wider than the traditional In-service seminars and
workshops. In addition to English, Mathematics, General Science and 3Rs, more
subjects featured which included: Music, Fine Arts, Theatre Arts, Physical Education
and later, Agricultural Science.

The residential 3Rs in-service course was designed for the purpose of promoting
teacher’s competence and confidence in the teaching and learning of the 3Rs at
Standard II and I levels. This stemmed partly from the need to establish a standard
writing, or ‘Hati ya vikonyo’ (Ministry of Education, 1985). It was also partly due to
public demand for an improvement in the pupil’s level of competence in 3Rs
(Makweta, 1985). The 3 months residential course was part of a course after
completion of an introduction 9 months correspondence study.

In the year 2000, the Ministry of Education and Culture conducted an evaluation of
the impact of the 3Rs teacher training in primary schools. The evaluation revealed
that teacher trainees and those in the field were not equipped with necessary
knowledge and skills for quality and efficiency teaching and learning of reading and
writing for critical thinking in standards I and II and even in upper classes (Ministry
of Education and Culture, 2000). Mbunda, (2001) similarly found that training process
of teachers did not provide the type of teachers for reading. He noted that there

128
was an obvious lack of knowledge of what reading is, its process, approaches,
management of reading program as well as of practice to compare theory and the
real world.

The Active Learning initiative in Tanzania emanated from a UNESCO project on

Reading for All, initiated to help member countries to improve reading and writing
ability in their own countries as a fundamental human right and essential component
for human development (UNESCO, 2000). Tanzania was among six developing countries
selected to implement the project with support from international Reading
Association (IRA).

In 2001 the Ministry of Education and Culture organized capacity building workshops
for 25 national facilitators, which included tutors and school inspectors, with
facilitators from IRA. By 2002 the facilitators and gone through three phases of
training. However, even before “graduating” the teacher trainers developed college-
based plans to disseminate the Active Learning to nearby primary schools. The
trained tutors have already conducted the workshops which were funded by the
Ministry.

In mid- 2002 an evaluation of the training was conducted. The findings revealed
that trained tutors and teachers used Active Learning methods to teach any subject.
In this regard, Active Learning methods were used across the curriculum. The
Active Learning initiative in Tanzania addresses aspirations of the country with
regards to quality improvements in education as articulated in the Education and
Training Policy as well as in the Primary Education Development Plan (2001-2006).

The Active Learning initiative is considered as a practical initiative for improving

the quality of teaching and learning in primary schools. It has come at the right
time when the Ministry of Education and Cultures is carrying a major reform in the
education sector. This is an existing strength for the pedagogical change brought
about by the Active Learning initiative to be easily mainstreamed in the continuous
professional development of teachers and in the pre-service teacher training.

Professional Development of Tutors

The training of college tutors emanated from the need to improve the quality of
education at all levels. The aim of the training is to create a strong and competent
cadre of teacher educators in areas of research and interactive methodologies .

The program started in 1997 with needs assessment for professional up-grading of
college tutors followed by training of course trainers (facilitators) in 1988. The
three months tutors’ course started in 1988. By the year 2003 ten intakes were
conducted where 284 college tutors attended.

The Teacher Education Department is responsible for the co-ordination and

Monitoring the programme in collaboration with consultants from the Stockholm
Institute of Education (SIE). In addition the role of SIE was to accredit the course
at degree level as well as further up-grading of the course “training of trainers” ( TOTs).

129
The consultants were also involved in the establishment of a mentor system in the
seven zonal colleges/centers with the aim of giving professional back up to the
college tutors for effective implementation of experiences gained in the course.
Currently the Open University of Tanzania (OUT) has come in to take the role of SIE
after the programme has been mainstreamed. Since the beginning of the programme
the efforts made to the programme have been linking with a number of institutions
which dealt with issues related to Teacher Education in the country and outside
the country.

Apart from the achievements made, there is still a bulk of 615 tutors who have not
been up-graded. An alternative mode of providing the training to increase the
access to the programme has been introduced. Instead of three months residential
course offered in one college now a semi-distance mode has been introduced.
This involves studying modules prepare by TOTs at own college for six months with
four weeks face-to-face seminars. The impact of tutors training have started being
felt at classroom level as indicated by performance of graduating teachers from
colleges.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Based on cases reviewed here, it clearly shows that Teacher Education is in the
midst of significant importance in initiating and sustaining educational innovations.
All in all it is said that past success guarantee nothing for the future (Bolla, 2003).
In this regard some recommendations are given here to guide future required
innovations in Tanzania.

In-service Policy : It is clear that professional development of teachers is crucial

for quality improvement in schools. Thus, there is need for a coherent policy
support in the provision of In-service training for teachers. The existing 1995
Education and Training Policy does not cover adequately the Up-grading and
Professional Development of Teachers in the country. Such as a policy is needed
to support innovation, made in the provision of In-service teachers programs with
related incentives.

Information, Communication and Technology Innovation (ICT) : The on-going

sector-wide educational reforms being implemented in Tanzania are enshrined in
the Tanzania Vision 2025. A country with a well educated and learning society
equipped with the knowledge and skills to respond effectively to the development
challenges in the competitive global environment. It is also envisioned that by 2025
every Tanzanian will enjoy a high quality of life. This constitutes a big challenge to
the education sector during this 21st century which is characterised by science
and technology.

Fortunately, the policy framework acknowledges the reality that the ICT is the
fabric of the information society of the century. ICT offers a great potential for
everybody to access global information and knowledge resources and to expand
the scope of learning. It can be harnessed for revolutionalizing the way teaching
is done. Computer literacy is a basic skill for performing in an increasingly knowledge

130
– based global community. Therefore computer literacy for all students and teachers
is a desired goal and a target to aim at achieving as soon as it is possible. This
potential need to be harnessed and natured to improve access to good quality
education for all. In particular, it has a potentially important role to play in the
provision of upgrading programmes for the large numbers of under-qualified primary
school teachers as well as training in an efficient and effective manner the growing
demand for new teachers by the fast expanding primary and secondary education.

The Ministry is in a process of developing a secondary Education Development

Plan (SEDP) 2004-2009 which will involve massive expansion of secondary Education,
ICT based teacher training is therefore a pressing need. Human Resources capacity
building to deliver this ICT based training is a necessary component. The country
has potential for the introduction of ICT innovation. This includes, existence of
Teacher Colleges which have on an individual basis, started to creatively initiatives
to acquire computers and to provide computer training for students (teacher
trainees). Each college has a computer laboratory and at least one computer.
Some funding agencies have shown interest to support teachers colleges to
establish facilities for launching computer training and ICT based teacher training.

References
Bolla, A: (2003): A pedagogy, Secking a Justifying Theory: Retrieved 24/02/2004
from: htt:// as 1.ipfw.edu/99 to be/presentations/bolla. Htm

Clenn, A.D. (2001): lessons in Teacher Education:

A comparative Analysis of Teacher Education in United Kingdom and United States,

Washington, Eric Clearing House on Teaching and Teacher Education.

Makwetta, J.M (1985):Hotuba ya Waziri wa Elimu, Ndugu Jackson M. Makwetta (MB)

Kuhusu makadirio ya matumizi ya fedha kwa Mwaka 1985/86 Dar Es Salaam

Mbunda, F.I (2001): “A study on current Approches on Reading in Tanzania Primary

Education. A Final Report” Dar-es-Salaam UNESCO (Un published).

Ministry of Education and Culture (1995): The Education and Training Policy
Dar es Salaam, Adult Education Press.

Ministry of Education and Culture (1988): The impact of Some Centralised In-service
coursese on the Teachers Competence in Teaching selected Subjects in Primary
schools. Dar Es Salaam, MOEC

Ministry of Education and Culture: (2003):“A report on Evaluation of the Impact of

3Rs Teacher Training in Primary School Education” Dar-es-Salaam, UNICEF.

Ministry of Education and Culture (2001): “Report on Reading and Writing for Critical
Thinking” Workshop held at Plan African Hotel Moshi, 21/5 – 25/5/2001,
Dar-es-Salaam.

131
Ministry of Education and Culture (2001)Education Sector Development Program:
Primary Education Development Plan 2002 – 2006, Dar es SalaamMOEC.

Ministry of Education and Culture (2003): Basic Statistics in Education 1999 –

2003:Dar-es-Salaam, MOEC.

UNESCO (2000): Terms of Reference: Reading For All Project: Capacity Building for
Teachers in the Teaching of Reading (Mimeo) Paris, UNESCO.

132
 Teacher Education And Teacher Development
Through Distance Mode

Prof. Mohammad Miyan*

Section - I

Introduction
Teacher Education in post independent India has shown tremendous improvement
in content and its transaction. Development in school education and teacher
education cannot and should not be viewed separately. In spite of huge increase
in population we have done quite well in providing educational facilities that includes
trained teachers. Gradually the entry qualification of teachers has been improved
from middle school level education to + 2 level. But for secondary teacher, the
qualification remains the same i.e. graduation in Arts or Science. In the earlier
years after independence, the secondary teacher education course was under
the state department of education, which prescribed the courses of studies,
conducted the examination and awarded diploma. It is now governed by the
university system and a degree - B.Ed., is awarded. It is generally believed that one-
year duration of the course is insufficient to develop necessary understanding of
theoretical knowledge and the practical skills required of a secondary school
teachers. In order to provide a longer duration for preparation, a four year
integrated course after higher secondary was started by the Regional Colleges of
Education in 1963. Though considered a better model of teacher preparation, it
has not. been replicated elsewhere in the country. A significant development which
contributed immensely to quality of both school education and Teacher Education
is the establishment of National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT)
as an autonomous body and States Institutes of Education (SIEs) which were later
upgraded as State Councils of Educational Research and Training. NCERT working in
close collaboration with SIEs / SCERTs brought about significant improvement in
the curricula of School and Teacher Education and text-books for schools. This
development also added an important dimension in teacher development as NCERT
initiated by in-service Education programmes.

The government of India set up an advisory body for teacher education named as
National Council for Teacher Education in 1973. The department of Teacher
Education in the NCERT functioned as its office. The recommendations of the NCTE
were implemented through this department of the NCERT, which brought about
much improvement in teacher education in the country. Significant among them
was development of Teacher Education curriculum framework (1976), which came
into being with the joint efforts of the NCTE and UGC’s panel on Teacher Education.
The framework was discussed by teacher educators at two National Conferences,

* Dean, Faculty of Education & Hony. Director, Centre for Distance and Open Learning,
Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India

133
which was approved in 1978. The NCERT had also developed supplementary material
in the form of books to help the implementation of the recommended curriculum.
It was a significant departure from the earlier courses of studies as theoretical
principles were new related to Indian conditions, more attention was given to
practical aspects of teacher preparation, and to educational technology. New
areas - working with Community, and work experience, were included in the practical
work. The Teacher Education Curriculum was revised again after the NCTE attained
the Status of a Statutory Body in August 1995.

To encourage innovations and experimentation in teacher education institutions,

the NCERT introduced a programme of “Seminar Readings” in Teacher Education.
This programme continues to encourage teacher educators to try innovations in
their institutions. Generally speaking, it seems useful to define innovation as a
deliberate, novel, specific change which brings more efficacy in to the system in
order to achieve the goals of the system. In another words, an innovation can
refer to a creative selection, organization and utilization of human and material
resources in new and unique ways, which will result in the attainment of higher
level of achievement for the defined goals and objectives. NCERT’s attempt to
introduce micro teaching in teacher education colleges did not receive much
success in the beginning but now this technique is universally used in India as a
preparation for internship in teaching. The NCERT has also attempted to introduce
two other innovations: Models of Teaching and Value Clarification. NCERT also
organized in-service training programmes to orient teacher educators. These later
innovations have not yet become part and parcel of the teacher education
programmes.

After becoming a statutory body, NCTE has got legal powers to recognize and
derecognise teacher education institutions. It has developed norms and standards
to be fulfilled and maintained by teacher education institutions. NCTE has also
recognized innovative courses like 4 years integrated course in teacher education
and two year B.Ed. degree course which is offered by RIE and Gujarat Vidyapeeth.
Das (2004) opines that NCTE should work in collaboration with the UCE and GOI for
developing a phased programme for conversion of one year B.Ed. Course into a two
year in order to implement its own resolution throughout the country.

To develop and maintain standards in teacher education, it is imperative to consider

pre-service and in-service education programmes as a continuum. These efforts
have their roots in the National Policy of Education (1986), which resulted in the
strengthening of teacher education institutions at both levels: Elementary and
Secondary. There is still a need to strengthen the structure of professional
development of Teacher Educators though the Academic Staff Colleges do organize
refresher courses but under the guidance of the UGC. The NCTE is to think seriously
about the quality of manpower in teacher training institutions in terms of their
preparation and professional development. The NCTE Act also states that “it shall
be the duty of the Council to take all such steps as it may think fit for ensuring
planned and coordinated development of teacher education”.

134
 Section - II
The Advent of Correspondence courses or distance education in teacher education
leading to B.Ed. degree was another development during the last four decades.
RCEs and CIE introduced summer school cum correspondence course leading to
B.Ed degree for in service untrained graduate teachers. These summer schools
were discontinued after 1985. Some of the universities later started B.Ed through
correspondence and admitted a huge number of aspirants. It led to substandard
training to the pupil teachers. With the intervention of the NCTE, these
correspondence courses were closed down and NCTE laid down norms for B.Ed.
degree through distance mode for maintaining quality in teacher education, which
are in force since 1996-97.

The two year B.Ed programme through distance mode is a very well thought of
programme. This gives an opportunity to those who are already in service and
teaching. By and large, there is hardly any untrained teachers employed in the
government sector to teach secondary classes barring the north eastern region of
the country. Thus it mainly focuses on the teacher employed in the private sector
and those who are teaching at the lower level and desire an upward mobility. The
check of the quality is in limiting the number of seats allotted to an institution and
strict monitoring by the NCTE and the Distance Education Council. The course
material developed by IGNOU and some other universities is of very high quality and
is updated at regular interval of time. Admissions are made on the basis of merit
determined by the entrance test which comprise (i) General Mental Ability (ii)
General Awareness (iii) Teaching Aptitude and (iv) Subject competence. The contact
point for the student is the study / programme centre which is equipped with
necessary paraphernalia for transaction through counseling, viewing / listening
video / audio programmes. Most of these centres are connected through satellite
for telecast of the programmes and / or teleconferencing. For ensuring the quality
of transaction these programme centres need to be at places where regular B.Ed.
programmes are offered. There is also ample scope, some time more then the
regular stream, for skill development. Each year a workshop is organized for 12-15
days in succession where in students prepare themselves for various tasks to be
undertaken during internship. Submissions of assignments further keep the students
busy at their own places. Thus as a whole, given the background of students and
a longer duration of the programme, helps them develop a very sound theoretical
foundation which they test and verify during the school-experience.

A general framework of the programme compress of (i) core courses (ii) content-
cum-Methodology (iii) special courses and (iv) practical courses. I wish to emphasize
the skill development aspect of the B.Ed. programme through distance mode. In a
total 48 Credit programme, the practical courses have a weigtage of 16 credits.
The practical experience is suitably categorized and organized under the practical
courses: School based Practical, Workshop-based Practical and Practice Teaching.
School based practical work includes activities like: Maintenance of Registers and
Records, Addressing the School Assembly, Preparation of School Time Table, Planning
and organizing Field Trip, organizing career Talk, PTA meetings etc., Administration

135
of a psychological test and analysis of its results Preparation of Commulative Records,
Action Research and Content Analysis etc. Workshop based practicals include lesson
planning, micro teaching, simulated teaching etc. One can easily derive a conclusion
about the rigor involved through this mode of teacher preparation. The model
needs to be replicated for the Diploma course in Elementary Teacher Education.
Besides B.Ed., there are other teacher training programmes, which are offered
through distance mode viz., M.Ed. B.Ed. (Special Education) and Diploma in ECCE
etc..

There are other innovative teacher education programme for updating the
knowledge of teachers and help develop new skills in dealing with the challenges
emerging in the society like technological development and changing of the value
patterns. Indira Gandhi National Open University planned, and organized a
programme for primary school teachers of the North Eastern Region of the country.
The academic standard of some of these teachers is as low as middle level. It is a
three tier programme and is modular in nature. First two stages each of six month
duration entitle the learner a certificate at each stage. The third stage which is of
one year duration provides a Diploma in Primary Education provided the first two
stages have been completed successfully. This programme has NOTE’S support.
Another novel idea is also being implemented: the Govt. and the NCTE have advised
IGNOU to make some modification in the first module by incorporating an element
of teaching practice and offer it as stand alone programme leading to a ‘Certificate
in Primary Education’.

Though it does not fall within the purview of the distance education but it is worth
mentioning that those who have done B.Ed. are given short term refresher /
orientation course in Primary Education so as to make them eligible for appointment
as teachers at primary level. This also has the sanction of the NCTE.

Section - III
One need not emphasize the enormous task at hand for planning, organizing and
conducting professional development programmes for teachers in the country.
Education being a concurrent subject, the effective coordination between Central
Govt. and the State agencies is of prime importance if we desire to implement any
scheme successfully. Govt. of India’s scheme of District Primary Education Programme
and now Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan for universalisation of Elementary Education envisages
qualitative improvement in the classroom processes/practices. In this context, the
teacher and his / her capabilities of effective curricular transaction draws a lot of
attention. Up gradation of teachers skills and knowledge is done through organizing
training programmes at various levels. Distance Education mode is also playing a
very important role in supplementing the efforts of training of teachers. The activities
are directed by the following specific objectives:

To provide technical support in designing, developing, producing and

delivering distance learning inputs and materials for training the primary
education personnel.

136

To build capacity among institutions and people at national, state, district
and sub-district levels in designing, developing and producing and delivering
DL inputs and materials.

To assist in reducing transmission loss by suitable DL interventions, thereby
increasing consistency and quality of training efforts.

To develop materials and organize training inputs for selected district
level personnel.

To assist in augmenting the existing EMIS to incorporate data base related
to training; and

To develop a mechanism to assess trainee performance for providing credits
leading to certification.

The above set of objectives seem to be very ambitious as it has to involve the
entire community of primary school teachers through out the country. Also one
should keep in view that the programmes designed for inservice training have to be
local specific and to be transacted in regional language. One significant advantage,
besides covering a large group at a time, the national/state level expertise can
interact directly with the target group. More over dilution of transmission is
prevented which is more likely in cascade approach.

The strategy adopted by the project under discussion is basically three fold. (i)
developing expertise from with in the target group (ii) involvement of the members
in software development and (iii) involving almost all stake holders : teachers,
students, teacher educators, officials and the community.

Besides print, electronic media has extensively been used and was quite successful
in developing and transmitting radio programme, interactive TV programmes for
which the project has developed its own infrastructure of DRSs throughout the
country. Internet facility have also been used to access information and clarifying
doubts. Internet Access Device along with TV as a monitor was also successfully
experimented.

With the launching of a dedicated satellite (Edusat) which will exclusively be available
for education sector in near future, the facilities of using distance mode will
obliviously be increased several fold. It is a matter of advance planning and utilizing
its full potential.

With the help of a few examples above about the successful use of distance mode
for teacher training and teacher development, one can draw a conclusion that
distance mode can ensure better maintenance and development of quality in teacher
education.

137
138
 Education of Teacher Educators

- Prof. R. N. Mehrotra*

Teacher Educator has a crucial role in quality assurance in teacher education. A

cursory job-analysis of a teacher educator reveals that he is required to teach
theory, to supervise student teaching, to facilitate exposure and adjustment to
school situations, to provide individual guidance, to counsel in personal and
professional problems. He is the philosopher, friend and guide to the prospective
teacher. As a teacher, he tends to become a model-ideal, good or bad, to be
copied. His conduct and style, his interest in the school subjects, his ways of
relating to student-teachers mould their outlook and behaviour as teachers. His
visible approach to his duties, spirit of sincerity, sense of seriousness, relations
with colleagues and school teachers are seen and learnt by student –teachers. He
thus is expected to help them understand education in all its parameters, to attain
skills of classroom teaching and to build up professional attitudes. He also should
stimulate curiosity and assist in generating knowledge.

Besides, he should extend his services to the school system and conduct and guide
research. Considered as an educationist and an expert on educational matters, he
is often consulted and he participates in policy-decisions and administration.

Equipment of Teacher Educator

To ensure good performance in these various job-oriented activities, a teacher
educator should be adequately equipped in the beginning and remain so throughout
his working life. He should be saved from obsolescence, routinisation and burn-
out.

Is a teacher educator adequately equipped in the beginning to perform well? How

has he been prepared for his responsibilities? How does he continue to maintain
and improve upon what he began with? How does he avoid becoming a worn-out
machine?

It is my perception that neither by pre-service education nor by in-service

programmes, nor by experience, our teacher educators are well equipped for
effective teacher education. With respect to his academic preparation he has a
long period of general education followed by or integrated with professional courses.
Generally, at all the levels of teacher education, teacher educators possess a
Master’s Degree in Education.

In the process of accreditation/recognition of teacher education institutions,

satisfaction of the norms of qualification for teacher educator is a necessary element.
The N.C.T.E norms are as follows:

Dayalbagh Institute of Education, Dayal Bagh, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India

139
For Secondary teacher education: A Master’s Degree in Education and Master’s
degree in a school subject.

For Elementary teacher education: M. Ed. with Master’s Degree/ Specialization

in the school subject/educational technology; Desirable: preferably in psychology/
sociology.

For Pre-primary : Essential M.Ed/M.A Education with Early Childhood care and
Education; Desirable: M.Sc. Child Development. The specializations in pre-primary
education are under the desirable category, not essential.

At secondary level, most teacher-educators have a double Master’s Degree- in a

school subject and in Education (M.Ed). The M.Ed. follows Bachelor’s Degree in
Education (B.Ed.). Many teacher-educators have also obtained a research degree-
M. Phil. or Ph.D.

At elementary level too, almost all teacher-educators are M.Ed’s. Following the
B.Ed not all have been through an initial teacher education course in elementary
school –teaching nor have any experience of an elementary school.

At pre-primary level too, M.Ed. degree following B.Ed. is the norm. Any degrees in
early childhood education or psychology are possessed by very few.

The B.Ed. course is offered after a general Bachelor’s degree in Arts, Science,
Etc. It is Pre-services course meant to prepare teachers for secondary schools
while for teachers of elementary or pre-primary schools, there are two-year
professional courses after 12- year schooling.

Our teacher education system, thus has professional specialized courses for the
three level of teachers-B.Ed. for secondary, a certificate for elementary and a
certificate for pre-primary. Unfortunately, in recruitment , B.Ed. is considered a
higher qualification and therefore , even in elementary or pre-primary schools,
and in institutions of elementary and pre-primary teacher education, B.Ed’s get
appointed as teachers and educators in preference to those who have studied
specialized but non-graduate degree courses in elementary/pre-primary education.
Thus, there would be a large number of teacher educators in elementary and pre-
primary institutions who, by professional education, are not well equipped(unless
one believes that these courses in any case, do not matter!) for those levels.

In sum, at all levels of teacher education , teacher educators possess Master’s

Degree in Education and Master’s in a school subject. Thus, M.Ed. seems to be a
degree which is an essential requirement for teacher educators in all teacher
education institutions of all levels.

What is this M.Ed Course ?

The M.Ed. in most of our universities is a general course, not leading to any
specialization. The curriculum generally includes three or four compulsory courses

140
commonly-philosophy, sociology, psychology of education and research methodology.
Also one or two electives are offered, e.g.. Guidance and Counselling, Educational,
Administration, Experimental Education, Education of the Gifted, Information
Technology. These electives are wrongly claimed to equip them with specializations.
They are at most only introductory courses. The compulsory courses too are only
a little advanced over the philosophy /psychology/sociology/evaluation courses at
the B. Ed. Level.

Very few universities offer some course in the methodology of teaching school
subjects, (e.g., Mathematics Education or Advanced Methods) in the M. Ed.
Curriculum. Thus, a teacher-educator teaches the course in methods of teaching
beyond what he himself studied for his B. Ed.

Teacher educators teaching core theory courses like philosophy of Education have
not studied philosophy/education beyond a general compulsory course. Some claim
specialization in a particular field on the basis of their doctoral work being classified
under it. Neither of these give a width and depth, which would justify the claim of
a teacher educator of being specialist in that area. Thus, our teacher educators,
by and large, lack worthwhile specialization in what they are teaching. It is
interesting to note that when a teacher educator is pressed to state his area of
specialization, the popular answer is ‘Teacher Education’ or ‘Educational Research’.

Pre-Service : Restructuring M. Ed
There is need to restructure M. Ed curriculum, so as to provide the beginning
teacher educator with sufficient and deep specialization for his assignments. This
should be followed with the provision of a la carte specialization in in-service
programmes for continuous updating.

We need to say unhesitatingly that the main objective of an M. Ed. Programme is

‘to prepare teacher-educators’ (This would be debated on the grounds that M.Ed’s
will also be educational administrators, curriculum experts, textbook writers,
researcher, guidance counselors, evaluation experts and so on. One could argue
back that M. Ed should cater for specializations in these areas as primarily to
prepare a specialized teacher educator and this would serve for the other
functionaries to) Therefore, we should design a course which prepares teacher
educators for specialization in any one or two aspects and areas of teacher
education. It would need offering a comprehensive course in each area- whether
it be (i) theory/foundation areas like philosophy/psychology/history/sociology or
(ii) in levels of education like secondary, elementary, pre-primary, or (iii) in pedagogy
of school subjects like methods of teaching History or Physics or (iv) in area like
evaluation, guidance, administration or modes of Teacher Education- Face-to-Face,
Distance education and so on.

In the first phase, the present one year course may have one/two papers as core-
[ may be research methodology or a Survey of our Indian Educational System] and
also three or four courses in only one area. The M.Ed. should also include teacher

141
education related practical work including practice-teaching to student-teachers
in teacher education institutions.

It would be ideal if the course be of two academic years- four semesters, where
the first year be a general course and the second, only the specialization area plus
a research dissertation in the area. All Master’s courses in all disciplines in our
universities are of two year duration.(We can not justify the two years as B.Ed. +
M.Ed., one year each)

The idea will not be accepted easily as it may create difficulties in getting jobs. At
present, the general M.Ed. fits in for all vacancies, while if specialization are available,
job requirement would be restricted.

In-Service
With the passage of time the teacher educators routinised, status quoits and
conservative. He goes on repeating and replicating year after year- even the same
anecdotes, same quotes, and same jokes. Most cease to reflect, read, write or
research.

Much more can be done to improve the teacher educator’s competence, knowledge
and expertise by in-service programmes conducted through multifarious strategies,
including distance education.

Distance Education
Distance education may be used to provide in each specialization area the following
instructional materials in different forms periodically and regularly :

1. Strengthening Knowledge Base: Distance education institutions may prepare

comprehensive and high quality courses in each specialization and offer them
to the teacher educators to be studied in their own-time. These courses may
lead to a Certificate/Diploma or may not. Rich instructional material be made
available in print, Video-audio, CD and other forms.
2. Innovations: Innovative practices and success stories at home and abroad may
be brought to teacher educator’s notice. Discussions may be held as to how
they can be introduced in practice by them.
3. Information about articles, journals, books, monographs in their relevant areas.
4. Skill in communication Strategies
5. Learning relationships
6. Skills of guidance and counseling
7. Dissemination of research findings in relevant to teacher education with
suggestions about how they can be adopted into the system.

It is desirable that the members of the faculty of teacher education initiate properly
designed research and involve their M.Ed., M.Phil., Ph.D., students to conduct
research on its different parts. Such research work will generate cooperative and
participative research culture and prepare well-trained researcher teacher
educators.

142
Search for knowledge about ‘teaching how to teach’ and teaching (the two are per
se different) will perennially provide themes for research in an institution which is
involved in teacher education programmes. Besides, the teacher educator will do
well to get into action-based research to continue research endeavour with real
world involvement and action. The outcome would be generation of knowledge
which would improve the standard of teacher education, the quality of life of the
individuals and the society, of education in a sub-system.

Individual needs: The distance education programmes may cater to individual needs.
The needs be as felt and expressed by the learner teacher educators. They may
preferably emanate from them and not always from the policy makers, administrators
and programme organizers ‘for their benefit’. Involvement of teacher educators in
planning, initiating, and evolving these need-satisfying courses would enhance their
acceptability and use. The teacher educators should continue to be exposed to
real schools, real students, real situations. They would thus be remain intimately
aware of what is really happening in schools and in the educational set-up.

In-Service Experience
Some teacher educators have had earlier experience of school teaching for some
time. In some cases, it is promotion from school to teacher education. A large
number however, get directly recruited on the basis of academic qualifications
they have attained. They have not had a first hand experience of school education.
Their acquaintance with schools has been during their own school education,
their practice teaching as part of their initial teacher education course, as teacher
educator/supervisor of practice-teaching or during extension services or as resource
person/experts in seminars/workshops for school teachers.

Like all professionals some grow with experience. Some develop specialization by
self-study or experience of teaching , publication or research in the area of their
interest. Most academics, with the passage of time, become specialists in some
aspect of their discipline. Unfortunately in teacher-education, we do not develop
such interests. As research guide we are ready to supervise a doctoral student in
any area!

Academics go on learning by interaction with peers. In education though prolific

seminars/workshops are organized but unfortunately those in which issues are
analyzed in depth are rare. The academic Staff Colleges in our Universities have
made only small dent, by way of orientation or refresher courses.

Institutional Culture
Teacher education succeeds in a healthy humane ambience. An effective teacher
education is an individualized and personalized programme. Each student teacher
has different educational and socio-economic background, understandings and
potentialities. Therefore a teacher educator has to have the values of respect for
an individual, patience, compassion, tolerance and readiness to work hard for
individuals. Hoe he relates with his students makes all the difference in creating a
healthy teaching-learning culture. A teacher educator should be easily approachable

143
and be available as and when a student needs or wants and vice versa. This
necessitates full day physical presence of both in the institution. This implies habits
of regularity, dissatisfaction with mediocrity, non-acceptance of slip-shod
assignments and urge for depth, seriousness and integrity.

In Distance Education also, regular contact with the target learner is essential. As
the Distance Education learner is studying in his own time, over and above his usual
daily personal and professional life, he has to goad himself and find energy and
motivation to sit down to his learning. He therefore needs to have the facility of
easy interaction with the Distance Education counselors, teachers, material writers,
evaluators, supervisors and student service administrators. These facilities and
contacts should be available to the learners as and when he needs them.

Let me again submit that teaching to teach is different from teaching. Although
teacher is a teacher, whatever the level or area be, with certain commonness in
teaching but teaching to teach is something special. Inter alia, the teacher
educator’s functions and methods are same as those of his students, is engage in
the same functions, which his students will engage in. This is unique with teacher
education. A professor in a medical college teaches to produce a medical person, a
professor in an Engineering College teaches to produce an Engineer but a teacher
education teacher teaches to produce one who will do the same, i.e. teach. So,
he has to be a good model.

Besides, the difference between teacher-educator and teacher is also observed in

certain vital matters, e.g., the age group, experience, previous knowledge and
educational background. The ambience of teacher educational institutions in itself
automatically and implicitly inculcates the spirit of dedication in a teacher.

Self- Realization
The overall pervading impact of long hours of sustained work in itself builts capacity
in the teacher educator and the teacher. Further, self-actualization and self-
realization lead to conscientious performance of duties. Spiritually angle to his
evolution is an added and highly important ingredient. The outcome is awareness
and devotion to his work, sensitivity and warmth of inter personal feelings, humanness
and congenial relationship with all he comes in contact with- his discipline, students,
colleagues, peers, community, society, humanity. All these qualities of hand, mind,
heart and spirit make him a worthy teacher educator.

144
 Teacher Education By The Distance Learning
System in Nigeria: Issues of Quality Assurance

Dr. Kabiru Isyaku*

Abstract
Distance Education (DE) is gaining ground across the globe. Expressed as distance
education (DE) or the distance learning system (DLS), this approach to educational
delivery has understandably become very important in teacher preparation. The
Nigerian experience, which interestingly is rooted in National Teachers Institute
(NTI) training programmes of the late 1970s, could be said to have come of age,
with the launching of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) in January
2004. In the circumstance, and given the current universal concern for quality
(UNESCO, 1998; FRN, 2002), this paper draws attention to some of the quality
assurance issues that have to be properly addressed for effective application of
DLS to teacher education.

Introduction
“Distance Learning”, or “Distance Learning System”, falls within the gamut of
“Distance Education” or “Open and Distance Education” (Perraton, 2003; Sharma,
2003; Robinson & Latchem, 2003). Although some fine distinctions could be made
between these terms (ADEA, 2003 Doc. 4E; Robinson and Latchem, 2003), they are
more often than not seen as synonyms. Distance Learning/Education or the
“Distance Learning system (DLS)” is usually explained as an educational process in
which a significant proportion of teaching is done by an individual or a group of
individuals removed in space and time from the learner.

This paper discusses the issue of quality assurance in teacher education by DLS
with specific reference to Nigeria. The emergence of distance learning system
(DLS) in Nigeria could be traced as far back as about sixty years ago. Operating
through the famous Rapid Results College (RCC) and Worsely Hall tuition houses,
the system was used to prepare candidates for the London General Certificate in
Education (GCE). In the early 1970s, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) started Teacher
Education Programme by DLS at the NCE level. This waxed strong for some time but
fizzled out within two decades. The 1970s also saw the evolution of National Teachers
Institute (NTI), Kaduna with the mandate of upgrading Teachers through distance
learning system. The Institute started with TC II. Then followed the Nigerian Open
University in 1980 which folded. up within four years without producing any graduate.
The NTI added another feather to its cap in 1989 when it launched a higher teacher
education programme, the Nigeria Certificate in Education by DLS (NCE/DLS). NTI
remained the only government agency for providing distance education until the
late 1980s when University of Abuja introduced its degree programmes by DLS.
Then in 2002, the Federal Government re-established a university solely for provision
of distance education under the name National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN).

* Executive Secretary, National Commission for Colleges of Education, Abuja, Nigeria

145
Merits of Education by DLS
The merits of distance education (DE) or the distance learning system (DLS) can be
viewed from various perspectives. A recent statement by Gajaraj Dhanarajan, the
President and CEO, Commonwealth of Learning (COL ), portrays the geo-political
and socio-economic merits graphically, viz: Some 60 million teachers are currently
in the education work force throughout the world. In order to meet the target
agreed upon by the 180 delegates who in 2000 participated in the Education for All
forum in Senegal, a further 15 million teachers will be required between now and
the year 2010.Apart from relying on traditional ways of providing this training and
retraining, governments and all other parties interested in the health of global
education need to explore others methods of teacher education and training.
One option is the application of distance education to deliver teacher training
more aggressively (Dhanarajan, 2003: xiv).

The merits are also evident in some of the purposes of education/training by DLS
outlined by Isyaku (2002), Bernadette Robinson and Colin Latchem, viz, to

1. Provide cost - effective teacher education and training,

2. Reach remote and rural teachers and widen their access to learning
opportunities and resources (Isyaku, 2002; Robinson and Latchem, 2003);
3. Provide an affordable alternative to models of in-service training, either
for initial training or continuing professional development, and to avoid
depleting school staff by taking them out of service for training,
4. Providing a route for unqualified graduate teachers to gain the required
teaching licences or teaching qualifications while working, and for qualified
teachers to upgrade their qualifications (Robinson and Latchem, 2003:32).
5. Provision of education under congenial industrials relations, marked by
absence of student indiscipline, cultism and violence (Isyaku, 2002);
6. Provision of education marked by harmonious relationship with staff instead
of the conventional staff strikes, disruption of teaching/learning and
seriously truncated academic calendar (Isyaku, 2002).

Furthermore DE/DLS is opening more employment opportunities for various individuals

and communities. The Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA)
reports for instance, that evidence from the African Virtual University (AVU),
Kenyatta University Centre shows that many AVU graduates have gained employment
in the rapidly growing internet technology company sector. According to the agency,
more generally, employers have confidence in AVU graduates and are actively seeking
to employ AVU graduates (ADEA, 2003. Doc. 7:25).

The merits of DLS can also be seen from the perception of content organization
and delivery Among these are the breaking down of materials to the barest minimum
of quantity and difficulty thus facilitating teaching and learning of such materials.
Invariably the most effective mode of sequencing is sought, again to the learners
benefit. This method of education increases the inflow of information and learning
opportunities (formal and non-formal for students and teachers in their work
contexts. Another merit is the capacity to disseminate information about curriculum

146
innovation (eg. new teaching approaches, materials and new teaching standards)
widely and quickly.

Theoretical Perspectives
According to Collins English Dictionary, quality is explained as “....the basic nature
or character of something... degree or standard of excellence”. Similarly, Websters
New Dictionary of English Language describes it as degree of excellence, or degree
of conformity to standard. In educational management, quality is seen as the
terminology that expresses the appropriateness, value or worth of something. Within
the realm of educational management also, quality, and therefore quality assurance,
is hardly considered in isolation. More often than not the term is considered along
such others as: quantity, standard, efficiency, quality control, and so on. Quantity
generally refers to the quantum of resources available to education, and or, quantum
of products from education. Standard could be seen as the degree or level of
worth, appropriateness or value.

With reference to efficiency, the term is considered a function of the quality and
quantity of inputs into education, and the output from the system. According to
Fadipe (2000:81) efficiency refers to the relationship between the inputs into the
educational system and the outputs from it . In the words of another scholar :

Efficiency of the school system is the relationship between the inputs (students,
teachers and materials) into the school system and output (graduated students,
dropout) from the school system. If a school \par system produces maximum output
with minimum possible input, the system can be said to be efficient (Oluchukwu,
2000: 100).

Scholars in educational management often speak of two types efficiency: the internal
and the external. Philip Coombs (1968) explains that internal efficiency refers to
relationship of the inputs into the school/educational system, to the outputs;
while external efficiency is the degree to which the school/educational system
meets societys broad expectations (cultural, political, socio-economic objectives,
etc). In other words, it is the ultimate benefit to society from the nations educational
investments or inputs.

Oluchukwu points out that while internal efficiency can easily be measured through
student performance, it is difficult to measure external efficiency because it is
not easy to monitor or to measure the performance of students who have graduated
out of the system. (Oluchukwu, 2000:101). Relating to the foregoing is the issue of
quality control or quality assurance which can simply be described as the measures
put in place to ensure that the educational system meets the desired quality. Put
differently, quality control is the mechanism set up to assure the stakeholders or
the overall society that schools are serving the purpose(s) for which they are
intended.

As Fadipe (2000) points out, maintaining quality cannot be effective unless a number
of parameters or indicators for assessment are set up to ensure that the output of

147
the production process in education meets the prescribed standard. Such
parameters, sometimes described as indicators or parameters of efficiency constitute
the instrument or mechanism for measuring the school/education system. From
the foregoing, one may observe the importance of a systems approach to education
for a realistic and effective quality assurance.

It should therefore be clear that the Nigerian perception of educational quality

purely in terms of examination scores is highly defective. Theoretically therefore,
issues of quality should concern internal and external efficiency of the educational
system. As a corollary, it could then be argued that looking at quality assurance
(QA) simply in terms of measures to ascertain or guarantee high exam scores is
rather myopic. Quality assurance, realistically speaking, should be seen from the
perspective of Student Achievement, and relate to quality indicators. This has to
be borne in mind when considering QA issues in teacher education by DLS. Relatedly,
we may recall that Yoloye (1976) identified six indicators of educational efficiency
(quality of teachers, facilities, instruction, evaluation, morale and educational
management), while Fadipe (1998; 2000) identified fifteen indicators of quality control
which he grouped under five clusters: quality of the teachers, students, textbooks,
infrastructural facilities and capital expenditure. To capture as many of the issues
as possible, it is probably best to adopt a systems approach to matters of quality
assurance (Sharma, 2003).

Quality Issues in Teacher Education

Given the foregoing, quality assurance must be very important in teacher education
at both t he phases of initial training and professional development; whether by
the conventional face-to-face mode, or through DLS. In fact, the premium placed
on QA could be said to be responsible for the emphasis in some quarters that DLS
should not be applied t o all aspects of teacher education. The same premium
partly explains the calls for introduction of a internship component into the NCE
programme (Isyaku, 2003). The caution has to be given that the actual DLS should
be restricted to the theoretical aspects, while the face-to-face mode should be
applied to the practical dimensions of pedagogy and teaching subjects. On this, it
must be noted that DLS may not be appropriate as sole method for Initial Teacher
Teaching in Nigeria because of so many factors, some of which will be discussed in
this paper.

The rationale is not hard to appreciate in developing countries especially, usually

harassed by power failure that automatically renders electronic gadgets temporarily
useless, and often permanently dam aged, while Telecommunication is often non-
existent.

In terms of general infrastructures/facilities, distance education comes off very

much worse because of its usual vast spatial coverage. For instance, the African
Virtual University (AVU) has centres different parts of the continent with varying
qualities of public utilities. In Nigeria, for example, the National Teachers Institute
(NTI) has no structures of its own at Study Centres. Operating largely on borrowed
structures, the NTI very often, relies on benefactor schools for practical facilities,

148
eg., laboratories reagents for science practical, playgrounds and appropriate
equipment for PHE. This is naturally done with some contractual or gentleman’s
agreement. To monitor and ensure quality in the circumstance is both difficult and
important.

With accent on quality (NUC, 1989; NCCE, 1990; UNESCO, 1998, 2000) great efforts
are now made to evolve performance indicators schemes or frameworks that
facilitate the task of QA. For instance the NUC and the NCCE have their minimum
standards and accreditation manuals each (NUC, 198 9; NCCE, 1990; 2002). Recently
too, the NCCE and Commonwealth of Learning (COL) teamed up to generate a
Performance Indicators Framework for use with respect to NTIs NCE/DLS programme
(Sharma, 2003). All this is a good thing. For DE/DLS however, applying performance
indicators effectively for quality control and assurance is however a hard nut to
crack. Nonetheless a good beginning has been made.

Quality Assurance Tools

It may be recalled that the subject of assurance tools was hinted at under the
discussion of theoretical perspectives above. Quality assurance tools in this context,
refer to a set of parameters or indicators used in ascertaining the health or quality
of a system/process. Given what had been discussed earlier, there are obviously
many of such. Only six major ones can however be isolated for attention here
curriculum, learners, personnel, facilities, monitoring/supervision, and evaluation.

The Curriculum : Generally, the curriculum is a vital quality indicator, second only
to personnel. The curriculum proves to be a vital instrument for evolving, upholding
and improving educational quality when handled in a modern professional manner.
In the world of today, the curriculum is no longer a dictated syllabus or the product
of one person, but rather a collaborative product of experts and stakeholders
rooted in theoretical framework and practical procedures (Tyler, 1949; Wheeler,
1967; NCCE, 1990; 2002; Nwosu, 1990). Because a good curriculum is a sine qua non
of qualitative education, curriculum building and utilization have become so
professionalized that great care is put into making it learner- friendly and learner
- inspiring. All the talk about integration, structure and sequencing in curriculum
work, indeed the whole theory of organization of learning and curriculum
organization are all part of the drive for quality assurance and educational efficiency.

As is to be expected, curriculum design assumes a much more critical status with

reference to teacher education by DLS. For the same reason, non-possession of
appropriate course books or curriculum materials often ob served of DLS students
in Nigeria is a dent on QA. One weak point in curriculum work, particularly in the
developing world, is in not feeding the results of curriculum research into the
overall curriculum process (planning development and delivery); hence there has
been a call in Nigeria for the country, at the national and tertiary institution
levels, to adopt a research-based or research - guided curriculum process (Nwosu,
2003). Again, teacher education by DLS would need to give the call a serious
attention. Both for the purpose of assuring society of quality, and improving same,
there has been a consistent recommendation of periodic curriculum review over

149
the years by NCCE (1990; 2002), UNESCO 1998), and the Nigerian Government (FRN,
2002). While an agency like National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE)
adopted a best practices with quiquennial curriculum review/policy for teacher
education at the NCE level, to in fuse this new concepts, theory is yet to be
properly entrenched by the rest of the Nigeria society.

Quality of Learners : From the systems approach to quality assurance (QA), it

should be obvious that quality of intake would also impinge on the type of products
that emerge from the systems. In Nigeria and many other countries, the feeling
persists that usually lower ability students find their way into teacher preparation.
This should not be the case, as the schools need the best “brains”. One way of
helping ensure high quality therefore, is to raise the admission requirements for
NCE and B.Ed programmes. To work, however, such a move must be preceded by a
vastly improved salary package and service conditions for teachers to make teaching
attractive. For DLS students nonetheless, the current entry requirements may
remain, because they are to be teaching already while the students are made to
spend more time with more and better support service to ensure much better
products from the system.

Quality and Quantity of Personnel : There is so much to be said here. Obviously,

when discussing personnel in the context of standard, quality or efficiency, we
must be concerned with both the quantitative and qualitative dimensions. These
constitute part of archeles heel of many a DLS programme. If we take the Nigerian
scenario where the NCCE Minimum S tandards requires at least twenty-five lecturers
for the Education discipline at the NCE level, most DLS study centres hardly have
up to three course tutors for Education. Most of them with only first degree and
some of them not qualified as teachers them s elves. It is very difficult for the
three to have the expertise to cover curriculum studies, psychology, guidance and
counseling, educational management, research, measurement and evaluation, history,
philosophy, primary education studies, educational technology, adult education,
and so on. When such a problem is compounded by poor working conditions,
delayed/low remuneration, delayed or irregular supply of course materials as often
happens, assuring quality must be an uphill task. Another quality issue that has
been escaping attention in the provision of DLS programmes in developing countries
concerns continuous orientation and professional development of course tutors.
For purpose of QA, DE/DLS providers should plan, budget and provide for such on
regular basis. With the coming of Teachers Registration Council, the era of
unqualified teachers teaching teachers is over.

Facilities : Just as in the case of personnel, the norms usually require facilities of
specified type, quality and quantity. These dimensions must therefore be catered
for in the planning, delivery and evaluation of teacher preparation by DLS. No
centre should be opened without the subjects facilities to ensure quality no matter
the political pressure. Some subjects/topics cannot be effectively learned without
practical or demonstrations by either the tutor or the students even in this age of
Information Technology.

150
In addition, there are the issues of effective and efficient use. Going by the Nigerian
experience, one dimension that is usually overlooked is the need for course tutors
at different Study Centres to improvise - within the limits of human possibility. This
situation has been responsible for the entrenchment of the attitude: “we are
offering distance education, the course book is the teacher, so no need for the
course tutor to make teaching aids or to improvise”. Relatedly, inculcating
maintenance culture into all stake - holders is another way of enhancing QA.

Supervision and Monitoring : With the experience gained over the years in distance
education, it has become clear that as far as monitoring/supervision are concerned,
there are different modes and levels to be covered. There are the internal and
external modes; as well as the headquarters/nationals, state/provincial county
office, and the study centre/community levels. Using Nigeria as an example, internal
and routine monitoring/supervision, is often carried out by DE providers (institutes,
universities) while external evaluation, hardly monitoring /supervision, is carried
out by national agencies like NUC and NCCE. What experience has taught the world
on DE is that internal monitoring/supervision should be intensified and sharpened;
also, that these should be complemented with periodic self-evaluation and external
monitoring by agencies like the NUC and the NCCE. Even here two variants ought to
be considered Impromptu Routine Monitoring (IRM) and Scheduled Monitoring (SM),
each fulfilling complementary needs. The former could focus on curriculum delivery,
while the later could centre on observation of teaching practice and conduct of
exams. Since in the case of Teacher Education, the students are already in teaching,
the role of the inspectorate SPES, UBE and other sponsors cannot be overemphasiz
ed. They should have a role in monitoring what goes on.

Evaluation : Part of what has already been hinted at above properly belongs here.
The point to be emphasized is that DE/DLS agencies/institutions should now have
an established policy and practice of self-evaluation at the various levels (National,
State/Provincial, Study Centre/Community levels). At the national level, the
authorities may adopt the performance indicators of the appropriate external
assessors, and expand/sharpen them as m ay be required.

At the second level, self-evaluation could be both formal and informal. At the third,
the Study Centre/Community level, self evaluation may simply be informal, sharing
of experiences and comparing notes and assignments among colleagues in a Study
Centre, and with those of other centres. Students of the centres should have a
complete portfolio of what they have and can do to show to their sponsors. In
other words, at the end of the course, student should go back to their schools
armed with both tangible and intangible new things to add verve to what they were
doing before. As for evaluation by external agencies, it has already be said that
such would be facilitated by observation of teaching practice and conduct of
exams. In the later case, scheduling has to be done in such a way as to also cover
practical in all subjects that require it for example english, sciences, physical
education, health education and so on.

151
Challenges
There is no doubt that distance education has played an important role in teacher
education and professional development in other places and in Nigeria. There is no
doubt too that DE/DLS will continue to play such important roles across the globe.
In Nigeria, however, the application of the distance learning system still has to
contend with serious constraints and challenges, among which are those highlighted
be low.

The Issue of Enlightenment : Part of the challenges facing the use of DLS not only
in teacher preparation but also in tertiary education as a whole, borders on quality
assurance and public acceptability. There is some history behind the problem. The
failure of the first national Open University in the early 1980s soon after take-off,
the quick replacement a few years later, and the latter\quote apparent loss of
steam has not obviously engendered confidence in degree programmes by the DLS
mode. The fall of satellite campuses did not help matter. While the NTI has stoutly
sustained its DLS programmes at Grade II and NCE levels, and has made significant
progress in the two over decades, it too is not entirely insulated against occasional
public doubts and cynicism (Nwosu, 2003). To meet this challenge, DE providers
may consider periodic public enlightenment programmes on their service. Propaganda
should however be avoided.

Evaluation of Learning : Part of the challenges in this context have been mentioned
earlier, some of the critical issues here concern proper assessment of skills, practical
knowledge, and practical skills in the practical sections of the subject areas and
pedagogy. Others relat e to propriety and effectiveness of the exam process in
DLS. The way out could be as outlined earlier above.

Curriculum Processes and ICT : In the advanced world, information and

communication technology have given a vast and almost magical boost to DE: Much
of that is making its debut in Nigeria, and the new National Open University of
Nigeria (NOUN) is expected to boost it shortly. While hoping to take advantage of
the ICT empowerment , DE/DLS providers should also prepare a remedy for the
nations proverbial epileptic public utilities, especially the unreliable electricity
supply. There is also the issue of appropriate personnel (engineers, technologists,
technicians) to handle the electronic gadgets to go along with ICT and DLS.
Furthermore, as pointed out earlier, practical aspects of courses must be adequately
taken care of in terms of curriculum planning, development and implementation,
invariably through a mix mode approach to curriculum delivery. In this situation; a
Teachers portal may be most appropriate. Here identified qualified personnel are
available to assist students in need mainly electronically but sometimes physically.

Updating the Books : Already, we have noted above that periodic review of the
curriculum has now become a norm (NCC E, 1990; Nwosu, 1990; UNESCO, 1998). A
natural corollary to this norm is periodic review and updating of appropriate
curriculum materials (course books, workbooks etc). Here again DLS providers are
confronted by another challenge. The constraint or challenge facing DE agencies/
institutions in such a circumstance can be appreciated from the current situation
in Nigeria in which the NCCE introduced its new minimum standards for NCE

152
programmes in 2002 and by 2004, NCE/DLS course books have not be updat ed to
bring them in line with the new NCCE - MS. DLS providers can overcome such a
challenge by advance planning, including sourcing of funds in advance. To further
enhance quality assurance, updating of course books should be scheduled around
the time t he minimum standards on which the course books are reviewed. As
pointed out earlier, modern curriculum work is a collaborative venture of experts
and stakeholders.

The Learner : Since experts stipulate that the learner is an indicator of educational
efficiency, this parameter must occupy an important position in quality assurance.
In Nigeria, part of the cynicism surrounding teacher education stems from what is
considered a low qualification of the entrants. It may be recalled that the challenge
confronting teacher education here could be met by raising entrants qualification.
In addition, interviews and aptitude tests could be added to enhance screening
and selection of highly qualified and capable students. It must be recalled also
that all this can only work if first preceded by a vastly improved salary and
employment package for teachers to make teaching and teacher education very
attractive. In addition, the country can take a leaf from the example of others
where students go into Teachers Institute only after recruitment into the Teaching
job. Thus they earn salary as they learn. The UK and Singapore are good examples
in this regard (Singapore, undated).

Conclusion
The paper under consideration has discussed selected quality assurance (QA) issues
in relation to teacher education, with particular reference to Nigeria. Noting
that QA is very important for educational efficiency, it highlights some of the
constraints and challenges facing teacher education by DLS mode, as well as how
to deal with them, for purposes of quality assurance and improvement. Even though
DLS is acknowledged to be retreaper that conventional system, there is the need
for proper funding and effective deployment of such funds to achieve the objectives
of DLS.

References
ADEA/Association for the Development of Education in Africa. (2003, Doc.4E).

Case study on distance education for teacher education in Mauritius.Paris: ADEA.

ADEA/Association for the Development of Education in Africa. (2003. Doc. 4B &B).

Ensuring quality of distance education: The Case of the African virtual university
(AVU). Paris: ADEA.

Dhanarajan, G. (2003). Forward in B. Robinson or C. Latchem. l Teacher education

through open and distance learning. London/New York: Commonwealth of Learning
(COL). FRN/Federal Republic of Nigeria. 2002. National Summit on Higher Education:
Action Plan. Abuja: Federal Ministry of Education.

153
Isyaku, K. (2002). \’93Educational innovations and the 21st century: Distance to go
in Nigerian distance learning system In C. M. Anikweze, M. O. Ojo & A. A. Maiyanga.
(Eds). Teacher education in Nigeria. Abuja: NCCE. l

Isyaku, K (2003). \’93Revamping Colleges of Education in Nigeria\’94. Journal of

Contemporary Educational Issues.Vol.1 No.1 June 2003. NCCE/National Commission
for Colleges of Education. (1990). Minimum Standards for NCE Teachers: Education
(2002,The 3 rd Edition). Abuja: NCCE.

Nwosu, D. (1990). }{\ul An analysis of the Nigerian tertiary teacher education

curriculum, 1932 - 1987, Unpublished University of Ilorin Ph.D Thesis.

Nwsou, D. (2003). Curriculum innovation for education and social reconstruction

in Nigeria, 1970 - 2003: Evolution of the social analysis and NCCE curriculum models.
Paper presented at the Annual National Conference of National Association of
Curriculum Theorist, Ondo, 6 - 10October 2003.

Oluchukwu, E.E. (2003). School mapping and planning for efficiency in the school
system: In J.O. Fadipe and P.K. Ojedele. (Eds). }{\ul Management of Nigeria
Education: Personnel Administration and Quality in Education. Ibadan: National
Institute for Educational Planning (NIEPA).

Perraton H. (1984) Training at a Distance. Commonwealth Secretary Marlborough

House Pall, Mall London

Perraton, H. (2003). Finding and keeping teachers in Commonwealth Countries:

How can distance education help? Paper

Robinson, B. and Latchem, C/(Eds). (2003). Teacher education through open and
distance learning. London/New York: Routledge, Falmer and Commonwealth of
Learning (COL).

Sharma, A.K. (Ed). (2003). Development of performance indicators framework. Report

of workshop organized by National Commission for Colleges of Education and
Commonwealth of Learning in Abuja, January, 2003.

Singapore, Ministry of Education.(Undated). Teach: mould the future of our nation

www.moe.edu.sg/teach.

Tyler, R. (1949). Curriculum and Instruction. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

UNESCO. (1998). World conference on higher education, Paris, October 1998, Report.

154
 Quality Assurance Practices in Teacher Education
Programmes in the Open University of Srilanka

Prof. Chandra Gunawardena*

Introduction
The success or failure in the implementation of education reforms rests largely on
what happens in schools, and principals and teachers need therefore to function
as ‘change agents’ in the transformation of policies into action. (National Education
Commission, 2003). There is a growing literature on educational reform in developing
countries which emphasizes the policy and management environment as important
contexts for teacher preparation and instructional improvement (Chapman and
Carrier 1990). Similarly, research literature on schooling effectiveness and school
improvement has shown that certain strategies are particularly important in building
and maintaining a quality system (Cuttarance, 1997; Reynolds, 1992). A significant
strategy that has been highlighted is the identification and provision of the
professional skills and knowledge required by staff to implement the school’s
development programme.

Sri Lanka which introduced an ambitious package of educational reforms to all its
schools in 1997 realized the importance of teacher education to achieve the goals
of educational reforms even at the planning stage in 1992. As the policy of appointing
professionally educated teachers to schools was not mandatory, the NEC in 1992
avowed not to appoint untrained graduate teachers but under the 13th Amendment
to the Constitution, education is a devolved subject and the Provincial Ministries
of Education have openly disregarded this directive.

Moreover, the declared state policy was to make education an all-graduate

profession. In a country which has a large proportion of its youth, who have
completed secondary education unemployed, however, especially as the only
opportunity for large-scale employment for persons with a general education is in
teaching, these declarations cannot hold ground and at times, it has been politically
expedient for the government to appoint non-graduates as teachers.

The in-service education of teachers in Sri Lanka is a function allocated to the

National Institute of Education (NIE) and the Provincial Ministries of Education while
initial or pre-service education of non-graduate teachers is conducted by the
Teacher Training Colleges and National Colleges of Education. The University
Departments of Education conduct pre-service education by producing a small
number of Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) graduates and in-service education of
graduate teachers together with the NIE.

Dean & Faculty of Education, Open University of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka

155
The Open University’s Department of Education was one of the few departments
established at the time the University was established in 1980. The first programme
to be commenced was the Postgraduate Diploma in Education to fulfill the demands
of an increasing untrained graduate teacher population. At present the Faculty of
Education conducts five major programmes, from pre-school education (Certificate
and Advanced Certificate through B.Ed. to Postgraduate Diploma in Education and
Masters). It also conducts a programme to train teacher educators. The Faculty
caters to more than 3000 students dispersed all over the country through
programmes conducted in all three language media, with smaller numbers in the
English medium.

The Open University employs certain quality assurance mechanisms in all its
programmes. These include the appointment of course teams and programme teams
which include representatives from the stakeholders, the appointment of all visiting
staff, assignment examiners and final examinations examiners with approval from
the relevant Faculty Board and the Senate, approval of the curriculum of the
programmes by the Curriculum and Programme Development Committee and the
Senate and approval of examination results and awards by the Senate.

The Concept of Quality

Many have argued that given the wide range of approaches and definitions, the
concept of quality is often elusive and difficult to articulate. It is subjectively
connected with that which is good and worthwhile. It is clear that stakeholders
or interest groups may have different priorities (Harvey and Green, 1993). Chapman
and Aspin (1997) remark that in their national study of Quality Schooling in Australia
they could not identify one particular version or ‘meaning’ for the concept of
quality, on which all unambiguously agreed.

Linke et al (1984) defined quality as referring to both the level of goal achievement
and to the value or worth of that achievement, that balance between these two
components being variable and generally un-definable. Quality has been defined
as ‘providing a product or service that is distinctive and special and which confers
status on the owner or user’, ‘as conformance to a specification or standard’, ‘as
fitness for purpose’, ‘meeting customer needs’. Of these, perhaps what is most
acceptable today is the last, meeting customer needs. Here in teacher education,
customers (stakeholders), range from the teachers themselves to their pupils,
parents and society. Quality assurance includes all the planned and systematic
actions necessary to provide adequate confidence that a product or service will
satisfy the customer requirements for quality.

Mechanisms of Quality Assurance

Mechanisms for ensuring quality can be looked at from the broad mechanisms of
staff recruitment and development, resource allocation and monitoring and
evaluation and as strategies for improving quality of input, process and output. As
the demand for certain programmes increases, the institution is able to impose its
own criteria for selection of students so that the best possible input is selected.

156
The quality of the process which in distance education includes the course materials,
delivery of courses, student support services and formative evaluation is affected
by various socio-economic and political contexts in which the institutions function.
The nature of evaluation used may decide the quality of output, whether the
graduates are awarded a mere paper qualification or whether they are truly equipped
with new knowledge, skills and attributes that would enable them to fulfill the
role expectations in their own chosen profession.

The initiatives for quality assurance can originate from within an institution
(Department, Faculty,) or emanate from external bodies The opening sentence in
the Quality Assurance Handbook for Sri Lankan Universities (Committee of Vice
Chancellors and Directors, 2002) states ‘responsibility for quality and standards
can only lie effectively where the powers to control or change products exist,
that is, with the institution itself – not with an external body’. In the case of the
Open University of Sri Lanka, both these mechanisms have operated. On the one
hand, the Open University and the University system attempting to evaluate the
quality of the departments as well as the universities have conducted Departmental
and Institutional Reviews. On the other hand, the Faculty of Education has
consistently and consciously reflected on the quality of its programmes and used
research and evaluation to investigate the perceptions of its clientele regarding
the quality.

This paper will focus only on the practices employed by the Faculty of Education
to ensure quality in its teacher education programmes. Specifically it will focus on
the areas of staff development, research and evaluation that have been utilized to
improve quality.

Staff Development
During the past decade, staff development has been given much priority in improving
the quality of education in OUSL. Staff development is conducted by the individual
Departments of Study, through workshops conducted by the Educational Technology
Division (subsequently by the Staff Development Unit) and through assistance from
the donor agencies.

Department of Education : Being a distance education institution, OUSL employs

a limited number of staff and depend on a large number of visiting academics to
support them in the delivery and evaluation of its programmes. As a result, regular
training of these visiting staff members is carried out by the Department. They are
brought to Workshops on the conduct of Day Schools (Contact sessions), assignment
marking and providing feedback to students and Teaching Practice Guidance and
Evaluation. Updated information to be included in teaching and evaluation and
interactive sessions using videoed demonstration lessons and group work are used
for this training.

Staff Development Unit : The Staff Development Unit conducts training workshops
for the orientation of new staff joining the Department of Education, production
of Audio-Video Materials, and on the use of Multi-media. The first is a comprehensive

157
type of training which covers all aspects of distance education such as course
material production, research, evaluation, student support services etc.. The last
is supported by the Commonwealth Media Centre based in New Delhi, India. The
Unit, in addition, develops and offers training on specific areas when requested by
the University or Faculties.

Other Initiatives on Staff Development : A major impetus for staff development

occurred with initiation of a three-year project supported by the Department of
International Development (UK) on enhancing the capability of OUSL in 1996. It
focused on the characteristics of client focus, quality evidence and data and an
emphasis on student learning outcomes. The Project made inputs into the areas of
distance education research, course material development, desk-top publishing,
student support services, management information systems, and staff development.

Under the sub-project on Course Material Development (MUK), the OUSL developed
the framework needed for providing quality course materials such as the House
Style and Bridging the Gap to be used in writing for distance education. Course
material development teams were set up at Departmental, Faculty and University
levels, and these teams trained by OUUK faculty and later by internal senior faculty
have endeavoured to transform the course materials in most Departments including
the Department of Education. A tangible output of the Project is the completed
transformation of the Postgraduate Diploma in Education course materials and the
development of materials of all new programmes to conform to DE quality assurance
criteria.

The Project also trained staff on Distance Education research under two sub-
projects, Research Advice (RUK 3) and Survey Research (RUK 2). The staff in the
Department of Education actively participated in these activities and they have
continued to play a major role in conducting useful research studies related to
university programmes.

The Project also provided opportunities for overseas exposure at OUUK to four
staff members in the Department of Education and to benefit from that experience
to improve the quality of programmes offered by the Department.
The Department of Education was also able to benefit from the inputs made for
university teacher educator development by the World Bank Project on Teacher
Education and Teacher Deployment in 1997. Two staff members were awarded
scholarships to read for PH.D. in the important areas of Educational Management
and Web-based Learning.

Currently, the Commonwealth of Learning is supporting the Department of Education

to improve the quality of its Master of Arts in Teacher Education programme to
offer it for an international clientele. The inputs have been made to review the
curriculum of the programme, to transform the professional courses of the programme
to make them more student-centered using situated and contextualized learning.

158
Research in Distance Education
The Department of Education is one of the OUSL Departments that appear to have
made maximal use of taking informed judgments based on the findings of the research
and evaluation studies carried out by its academics. Some of these studies have
been undertaken by the staff in pursuance of their higher degrees for career
mobility (Fernando, 1992; de Zoysa, 1995; Jayatilleke, 1996; Oliver, 1997). These
and other studies have attempted to evaluate selected aspects or entire programmes
conducted by the Department (Gunawardena and de Zoysa, 1995; Kudaligama and
Goonetilleke, 1995; Wijeratne, 1995 Gunawardena and Lekamge, 1999; Lekamge and
Karunanayake,2003). Some have been undertaken as need surveys (Wijeratne, 1989)
before deciding on the curriculum of new or revised programmes. A recent trend
is the interest in undertaking action research as an on-going activity to enable the
Department to modify its strategies on the basis of results emerging from the studies
(Lekamge and Jayatilleke, 2002-3). In this section of the paper we will focus only
on those studies which indicate an impact in the form of subsequent decisions.

Day Schools
OUSL uses Day Schools and tutorial classes to provide students the opportunity of
obtaining support from academic staff, to clarify issues or problems in subject
content that may not be well-explained in the course materials. Attendance at
Day Schools, however, is not compulsory. Wijeratne’s study (1995) found that
students in her sample, who lived in localities distant from the Central Campus
tend to miss the scheduled Day Schools and are compelled to leave the center
early in order to reach home before it was too dark. Due to physical exhaustion
resulting from long hours of traveling, they tended to be lethargic and were unable
to participate fully in discussions. They also found the Day Schools conducted by
the OUSL academic staff to be more productive.

De Zoysa (1995) also inquiring into the effectiveness of Contact Sessions, found
that the attendance at Day Schools in the PGDE Programme was not satisfactory.
Findings of these studies as well as communication by students have now led the
Department to undertake more regular training of Day School Academics, where
they are allowed the opportunity to update their knowledge of required subject
matter as well as on delivery (See above). In addition, with the support of the
Educational Technology Division, the Day Schools conducted by the Departmental
staff at the Central Campus are recorded and the audio cassettes are sent to the
Study Centres.

Formative Evaluation
All OUSL programmes have continuous assessment or formative evaluation as a part
of overall evaluation. In most of the teacher education programmes, teacher marked
assignments are used for formative evaluation. Thirty per cent of the total marks
obtainable by a student are earned through assignments and also the nature of
support they get for preparation for the examination, makes the quality of the
assignments set and the quality of their marking extremely important in deciding
upon the achievement of a student and therefore, the quality of the output. At

159
present all assignments are set by internal academics from the Department and
therefore a certain amount of objectivity is ensured.

Gunawardena and de Zoysa (1995) found that the student teachers in their sample
expressed concern regarding the length of the turn-around time. This was confirmed
by subsequent studies of Jayatilleke (1996) and Oliver (1997). All three studies also
pointed out that very often comments by the examiners are too short; sometimes
the comments are irrelevant or not found at all. The method used by Lekamge and
Jayatilleke (2002-03) was different from the above surveys. They examined a random
sample of assignments marked by the examiners, and verified whether the feedback
had been given, if yes, whether proper feedback had been given. On the whole
they found that the marking of assignments was not being done satisfactorily. As
follow-up action, training of examiners was done, where they were required to
mark copies of a selected number of assignments and the discrepancies in marking
were examined by the examiners themselves in a series of workshops. The decision
was also taken that the scripts marked individual examiners would be continuously
scrutinized to find out whether training had led an improvement in the quality of
assessment.

These studies have also led to a more stringent screening of the qualifications and
the experience of the assignment examiners. Recently, a deliberate attempt has
been made to appoint those possessing Masters degrees and who have experience
of the distance mode in the belief that they would be better able to understand
the needs of OUSL students.

Teaching Practice
Teaching practice is undoubtedly the most significant component in the Teacher
Education programmes as it attempts to link theory with practice and to develop
the essential teaching competencies needed by a teacher. In fact, it is at this
point that the quality of the output of a teacher education programme comes
under scrutiny. At OUSL, teaching practice is organized in two stages – Stage 1
where the student teacher teaches for a period of ten weeks guided by a Master
Teacher and Stage 2 – where he/she is evaluated by a University academic at a
school to which he is summoned but has prior knowledge of which Grade, subject
and unit he/she would teach.

The messages emanating from studies which looked at teaching practice have not
been consistent. Thus for example, Gunawardena and de Zoysa (1995) reported
that a predominant majority (84 per cent) had rated Master Teachers’ assistance
as very satisfactory. They appreciated the fact that the Master Teachers had
acted as counselors, guides, evaluators, critics and supporters. However, as against
36 per cent who found the extent to which teaching practice enables them to
acquire the skills needed to teach very effective, 48 per cent found it to be only
moderately effective. Wijeratne (1995) on the other hand, stated that the students
in her sample had responded that they do not receive enough guidance in lesson
planning and evaluation of their teaching from Master Teachers.

160
Kudaligama and Goonetilleke (1995) found the student perceptions regarding the
teaching practice component in the Bachelor of Education and PDE programmes to
be quite positive. Oliver (1997) looking into the three aspects of teaching practice
– preparation of a lesson, presentation and teacher attributes at entry level and
exit level, found that the performance at exit level had improved by 62.3 per cent.

In the case of teaching practice also, the response of the Department to the
findings of these studies was to screen the appointment of Master Teachers and to
strengthen the training and monitoring of the Master Teachers. At times, some
Master Teachers had to be discontinued and on certain occasions the marks given
by Master Teachers had to be standardized.

A major intervention came as a by-product of another research study (Cumming,

Gunawardena and Lekamge, 2002). The study had intensive observation of the
student participation in technical and vocational institutions using a validated
instrument tried in several Asian countries. As a follow-up of this study, the
Swisscontact, the donor agency in charge of improving vocational instruction in
the country invited the Department to send two participants for a month-long
training workshop and the two OUSL academics who participated in the workshop
were requested to develop an observation schedule which could be used for the
evaluation of the teachers following OUSL programmes. The draft schedule basically
looked at the students’ participation from four angles – “What do I see?”, “What do
I hear?”, “Where am I?” and “What do I do?”. The draft schedule was discussed at
length at staff workshops as well as with Master Teachers, finalized and is now
being used from 2003.

Programme Structure and Delivery

Two other studies examined the structure and the delivery of two programmes.
Gunawardena and Lekamge (1997) looked at the credit rating of selected courses
in the Postgraduate Diploma in Education programme. They found that the field
diaries of student teachers indicated wide discrepancies in the hours of work as
estimated by the programme developers and the actual number of hours put in by
the students. Moreover, the credit rating which was expected to be equal among
several courses differed widely. The findings of this study was compared with the
study hours of equivalent programmes conducted by other Universities and a decision
was taken to revise the credit rating of courses and the rating of the total
programme.

Lekamge and Karunanayake (2003) carried out an evaluation of the Master of

Education Programme , in which the completion rates have been relatively lower
than in other programmes of the Faculty. This evaluation looked at the perceptions
of the students as well as the academics teaching and supervising the students’
dissertations. Among others one of the findings of the study was the insufficient
guidance by the supervisors. One action taken by the Faculty to address this issue
is to schedule workshops for students after they complete their course work and
to introduce the submission of progress reports.

161
Extra-Departmental Quality Assurance Initiatives
Departmental Review by the Council-Appointed Committee : Parallel to the inputs
that resulted from staff development and research and evaluation discussed above,
other initiatives that stemmed from external forces were also taking place during
the last four years. In 1999, the Council of the OUSL appointed a Departmental
Review Committee comprising three eminent academics in the field of education
to assess the activities of the Department over a period of five years from 1994.
This was an important development in view of the fact that for the first time since
its establishment, the work of the Department was being evaluated by an external
committee. The Committee looked at the aspects of student enrolment, the
curriculum (teaching system, methodology, and evaluation, the staff (cadre,
qualifications, distribution of workload, visiting staff, research, and extra-
departmental activities), facilities and the future plans.

The Committee found the programmes offered by the Department to be relevant,

commended the quality of print materials that had undergone transformation as
distance education materials, but pointed out that there was a heavy dependence
on print materials. They found that some of the assignments could have been
improved to ensure higher academic standards, but that the standard of final
examination question papers was satisfactory. With regard to staff, the Committee
observed that even though qualifications of staff had improved over the period
under review, cadre increases and staff development by way of provision of
scholarships had not kept pace with the requirements of the Department.

Among the recommendations of the Committee were the following:

 Student enrolment should be maintained in relation to the staff availability
 More use should be made of educational technology for instruction
 Better distribution of work should be ensured and especially routine
administration work of academics should be reduced
 The work of visiting staff should be closely monitored and evaluated.
 Regional centres’ facilities need to be enhanced to facilitate greater
decentralization of academic activities.

Evaluation of the Department of Education Appointed by the Committee of Vice-

Chancellors and Directors : Under the Quality Assurance Initiative launched by
the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Directors (CVCD) selected Departments of
Study and selected Universities. The Department of Education of OUSL was chosen
to be reviewed in the pilot stage of the initiative. A retired Professor of Education
and two other Professors serving the University of Colombo comprised the Committee.
The work of the entire Department was evaluated by this team also.

The Committee in its report identified three factors that may affect the quality of
the teaching-learning process.

- The research and publications output of the majority of the staff is still low
although there has been some improvement.

162
- The relatively high proportion of the workload of most academic staff devoted
to administrative tasks

- The age profile of the staff with the more qualified academics due to retire
soon and with some vacancies being unfilled

The Committee also pointed out the need to promote the use of Educational
Technology in course design, delivery and teaching-learning enhancements. On
the whole the Committee commended the quality of print materials, assessment
methods student progress and completion rates and the quality assurance
mechanisms used in programme and course preparation even though there are no
formal mechanisms for review of teaching and other face-to-face activities.

Concluding Note
In this paper an attempt has been made to identify the mechanisms and strategies
adopted by the Faculty of Education, Open University of Sri Lanka to ensure the
quality of the teacher education programmes conducted by it. Specifically an
effort has been made to indicate how at every point in the conduct of a programme
from its conceptualization to certification quality assurance is being given attention.

It has been possible for the Faculty to reflect on the findings of research and take
important policy decisions or interventions to address identified issues as there is
continuous dialogue among faculty at regular staff meetings and research seminars.
In spite of the interest taken by the Faculty to ensure that the above mechanisms
are in place it has become extremely difficult to devote time and attention to the
improvement of quality in face of declining resources in both staff and equipment.

Selected References
Chapman, D.W., Carrier C.A. (1990) Introduction: Improving educational quality in
developing countries. In: Chapman D W, Carrier C A (eds.) 1990 Improving Educational
Quality: A Global Perspective. Greenwood Press, New York

Chapman, Judith and Aspin, David (19970 Autonomy and mutuality: quality education
and self-managing schools in T. Townsend (Ed.) Restructuring and Quality: Issues
for Tomorrow’s Schools. London, Routledge, pp.61-72

Collum, John, Gunawardena, Chandra and Lekamge, Dayalatha Baseline Data On

Instruction in Technical Education and Vocational Training Centers Sri Lanka” .May,
2001:Swisscontact, Colombo

Cuttarance, P. (1997) “Quality Assurance for Schools: Case Study – New South Wales”
in T. Townsend (Ed.) Restructuring and Quality: Issues for Tomorrow’s Schools
London, Routledge, pp.100-114

De Zoysa, T.S.V. (1995) A Critical Study on Contact Sessions in Teacher Education in

Sri Lanka (with reference to PGDE Programme of the OUSL) Unpublished M.Phil Dis
sertation. University of Colombo

163
Fernando, T.S. (1992) Teacher Education for the Professional Training of Untrained
Graduate Teachers. Unpublished M.Phil Dissertation, Open University of Sri Lanka

Gunawardena, C. and de Zoysa, S. (1995) Student Teacher perceptions of Delivery

Modes in Distance Teacher Education In Gunawardena, C.(Ed.) (1995) Proceedings
of the Workshop on Distance Education Initiatives in Teacher Education in South
Asia with Focus on Primary and Secondary Levels. November 7-10, 1995 pp.132-143

Gunawardena, Chandra and Lekamge, Dayalatha (1997) “ Use of Diaries/ Journals as

a Research Tool in Estimating Credit Rating in Distance Education” OUSL Journal
Volume 1, 1997. Open University Press, Nawala ,Nugegoda,Sri Lanka .

Harvey, L. and Green, D. (1993) “Defining Quality” Assessment and Evaluation in

Higher Education. Vol.18:1, ISSN 0260-2938

Jayatilleke, S.I.A. (1996) A Critical Study on Continuous Assessment by Written

Assignments in the PGDE Programme of the OUSL, Unpublished M.Phil Dissertation,
University of Colombo

Kudaligama, P.K.D.P. and Goonetilleke, S.P. (1995) Humanistic Approach in Distance

Teacher Education: Expected Outcomes versus What is Achieved Studied in Relation
to the Bachelor of Education (Natural Sciences) Degree Programme of the OUSL.
In Gunawardena, C.(Ed.) (1995) Proceedings of the Workshop on Distance Education
Initiatives in Teacher Education in South Asia with Focus on Primary and Secondary
Levels. November 7-10, 1995 pp.116-131

Lekamge Dayalatha and Jayathilake, Swarna (2002) “An Analysis of Tutor Commencets
Made on Essay –type Assignments of the PGDE Programme of the OUSL “ VISTAS
Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Vol.01 November 2002. The Open
University Press, Nawala ,Nugegoda,Sri Lanka .

Lekamge, G.D. and Karunanayake, S.P. (2003) “Factors Affecting the Successful
Completion of the Master of Education Programme Open University of Sri Lanka”
Annual Academic Session 2003 Extended Abstracts 9th July 2003 The Open University
of Sri Lanka.

Oliver, K.A.D.C. (1997) A Comparative Study on the Effectiveness of Grduate Teacher

Training Programmes in Sri lanka wit Special reference to the PGDE Programme of
the OUSL, Unpublished m. Phil Dissertation, Open University of Sri Lanka

Reynolds, D. (1992) “School Effectiveness and School Improvement in the 1990s” In

D. Reynolds and P. Cuttarance (Eds.) School Effectiveness Research, Policy and
Practice London, Casell

Wijeratne, W.A.R.(1989) Training Needs of Graduate Teachers in Sri Lanka. (Sample

Survey) (Unpublished) Open University of Sri Lanka

164
Wijeratne, W.A.R. (1995) “Quality Issues in Reaching Out to Teachers Learning as a
Distance” Proceedings of the Workshop on Distance Education Initiatives in Teacher
Education in South Asia with Focus on Primary and Secondary Levels. November 7-
10, 1995 pp.89-106.

165
166
 A Synthetic Approach To Quality Assurance
In Open And Distance Learning:
The Case Of The Pivotal Teacher Training
Programme In Nigeria

Dr. Ahmed Modibbo Mohammed *

Dr. Abdurrahman Umar**

Abstract
One of the major issues dominating debate on distance education in developing
countries is the problem of Quality of Open and Distance Learning programmes.
The major concern of this paper is to discuss Quality Assessment in a Teacher
Education Programme that is delivered exclusively in a Distance Learning mode.
The paper has four sections. Section one raises key conceptional issues in the
debate on Quality and identifies and briefly discusses the dominant paradigms in
Quality Assessment in teacher education so as to unveil their underlying assumptions.

Section two highlights the inadequacy of the objectivist approach to Quality

Assessment which according to the literature is the dominant paradigm in many
countries and contends that an alternative approach i.e. a synthetic approach
such as the one used in the Pivotal Teacher Training Programme (PTTP) as elaborated
in its Quality Assurance Framework (QAF), provides more insights on the quality of
teacher education than the objectivist paradigm. This is because it provides detailed
insights not only on “inputs” and “ouputs” but also on the educational process.

Section three outlines a synthetic approach to Quality Assurance in teacher

education and discusses the PTTP’s Quality Assurance Framework which clearly
demonstrates how the synthetic approach is used in the context of a teacher
education programme that uses Open and Distance Learning strategies. In
conclusion, it is argued that the objectivist approaches to Quality Assurance in
teacher education should be triangulated with other approaches so as to obtain a
complete picture of the quality of educational programmes.

Introduction: Definitions and Conceptualisations

It is important to note from the beginning that there is no consensus as to what
constitutes ‘quality’ or how it can be measured: Quality is a hotly contested
concept that is neither neutral nor self-evident (Lawn 1991:65 Schutz & Moss 1999).

According to Middlehurst (1992) there are at least four senses in which different
people use the concept “quality”. The first notion is that of quality as a “defining
characteristic or attribute of something”. Quality in this sense is an inherent (or
intrinsic) attribute, as for example, the quality of a priest is having faith in God.

* Director and Chief Executive, National Teachers’ Institute, Kaduna, Nigeria

** Director, Academic Planning Department, National Teachers’ Institute, Kaduna, Nigeria

167
The second notion is that it “refers to grade of achievement” as in norm-referenced
tests, when the quality of a student’s performance is determined by comparing it
with that of other students in the group. Thirdly, there is the notion of quality as
“a high level of performance or achievement”, which is generally agreed to be the
standard by which to judge other subsequent performances. Examples include
Albert Einstein as a model scientist, Usmanu Danfodiyo as an Islamic scholar (in
Nigeria) etc. The consensus on this standard usually endures for a long period of
time but is not permanent. Another variant of this is when “a standard is set which
becomes a model or point of aspirations for others”. A good example is a criterion-
referenced test where achievement is easily determined when a pre-set standard
has been attained. The fourth notion of quality is the achievement of pre-specified
objectives as earlier set by the client or the client and the supplier of the services.
This is widely used in industry and its prime concern is that brand specifications
must be adhered to strictly, even though a lot of ‘variation of quality’ are permitted
in so far as they do not deviate from the pre specified standards.

The most glaring weakness of these conceptions of quality as applied to education

is that they focus on educational outcomes rather than the educational process.
Now, while it may be adequate for an industry to focus on its products alone, this
perspective is inadequate in education because the latter is concerned with not
only its products but more importantly processes of production – in short the
quality of the educational process tells more about an educational institution than,
say the number of graduates it produced. Middlehurst’s (1992), exclusion of other
notions of quality, which address not only outcome but process as well, is a major
drawback. As will be shown later, there are conceptions of educational quality,
which do not ignore process variables; and in fact take them to be the major
determinants of quality.

The fact that there is no single generally accepted definition of quality of teacher
education is not surprising. Employers, institutions/managers lecturer, accreditation
bodies, students etc. differ in what to expect from teacher education, or what
indeed constitutes the objectives of teacher education, its quality and how it can
be measured. For example, government and accreditation bodies such as the NUC
and NCCE’s overriding concern in quality assessment may be as a means of securing
a trans-institutional means of comparing institutions for funding purposes and the
enforcement of the 60:40 Science-Arts ratio; while the students’ concern with
quality focuses on the extent to which there is a high degree of congruence
between the teacher education curriculum and the realities of the Nigerian
classroom. In other words does teacher education equip the student with the
necessary skills and knowledge that will enable him/her to reasonably cope with
the realities of classroom life?

The issues that tend to dominate debate on quality are often procedural and
technical rather than conceptual. (Barnett 1993). These include issues such as:

(1) How quality can be assessed

(2) Who is to do the assessing

168
 (3) The purposes/objectives of quality assessment and the extent to which
the quality of educational provision across institutions can be compared;
and
(4) The type of evidence that assessors should look at.

The conceptual issue as to what constitutes ‘quality’ in teacher education is hardly

addressed. What is peddled as definitions of quality are often impressionistic and
lacking in conceptual rigour; or they are partial definitions that reflect the concerns
and biases of a particular group at a particular point in time. For example when
parents or education bureaucrats claim that institution “A” is of lower quality than
institution “B”, what is usually referred to is educational inputs in both institutions
(e.g laboratories, number and qualifications of teachers) etc. rather than the
educational process. As is generally known, the mere availability of laboratories or
qualified teachers does not in reality mean that the laboratories are used effectively
or that teachers teach properly etc. One of the tasks of this International
Roudtable should be to identify the extant definitions of quality in teacher
education, unveil their inconsistencies, inadequacies, value assumptions and
ideological biases and perhaps come up with a definition that may be widely accepted
by most if not all stakeholders. The conceptual problem of defining quality in the
context of Teacher education will be re-visited later in the paper. This section will
now briefly outline the major approaches to quality.

Assessing Quality in Education: Dominant and Emergent Paradigms

Approaches to quality in education can be broadly categorized into: Objectivist,
Relativist and Developmental conceptions. (Barnett 1993) With firm roots in the
social sciences, particularly social theory, they differ in their purposes, focus, the
type of evidence they seek to gather and use and their institutional contexts.
There are several tendencies and subgroups within each category and they
constitute complex theoretical positions that cannot be discussed in a brief
exploratory presentation such as this one. What is done in this section of the
paper is to outline the major tenets of each of the three conceptions in turn.

Objectivist conceptions of Quality

The term ‘objectivist’ in this context is used to refer to conceptions of quality
assessment that are based on the belief that an ‘objective’ measure of quality,
particularly in cross institutional contexts is not only desirable but attainable.
Such conceptions assume that relevant performance indicators can be identified
and measured and that the same type of assessment can be used to measure the
quality of all courses or all institutions. Barnett (1992: 45-6) captures very well the
central tenet of an objectivist conception to quality assessment. He writes:

“By using a common methodology across the system, by looking at the same
aspects and quantifying them in the same way, an objective measure of quality
results … it is assumed that precisely because the elements in question have
been identified and have been assessed in the same way the figures that result
tell a story not only about this institution but also about this institution in
relation to others”.

169
An important consideration that is held dearly by objectivists is the generation of
‘valid’ and reliable “data” that can at a glance indicate the quality of not just one
institution but also facilitates the comparing of institutions on a quality index.

The data generated by objectivists focus exclusively on the ‘inputs’ and ‘outputs’
of institutions. The inputs that are measured include: teaching-learning facilities,
number and quality of teaching staff, students’ entry qualifications, research
facilities, buildings, equipment etc. Outputs include non-completion rates, final
examination results, pattern of employment after graduation, proportion of graduates
who enroll in higher degree programmes etc. (Johnes & Taylor 1990).

The assumption that there is some direct relationship between staff qualification,
students’ entry qualification, equipment and facilities on one hand and the quality
of tuition provided in an institution needs to be questioned and discarded. While
it is true that every institution of teacher education needs to have qualified teachers
and adequate teaching facilities, there is no direct relation between possession of
higher qualifications by staff and the ability to teach effectively nor does the mere
availability of laboratories or equipment in an institution suggest that they are
effectively used to promote learning. Similarly students’ entry qualification is a
very poor indicator of quality in that it is not only retrospective since its concern
is with the students’ past performance, but that a student’s entry qualification at
one moment in time cannot tell us anything important about the quality of the
education he is receiving.2

The focus of objectivist approaches on ‘inputs’ and ‘outputs’ of institutions

inevitably makes them summative in orientation with a heavy reliance on
performance indicators that can be quantified. But are all aspects of quality of
educational institutions quantifiable? There is a growing body of literature that an
over reliance on quantitative techniques in the investigation of the social world
does not engender a full understanding of social phenomena, including educational
phenomena.3 However the most serious drawback of objectivist approaches is
their neglect of the educational process itself – i.e the quality of the teaching-
learning process. The students’ educational experiences are entirely neglected
by objectivists, which is not surprising, given their undue concern with the quality
of “desired” ‘inputs’ and ‘outputs’.

Relativist conceptions of Quality

Relativist conceptions of quality emerged as a response to dissatisfaction with the
objectivist conception and are deeply rooted in what is usually referred to as
interpretive or naturalistic social theory, whose central claim is that the social
world cannot be understood in terms of causal relationships or by the subsumption
of social events under universal laws (Hammersley & Atkinson 1983). This is because
human action is based on social meanings: intentions, motives, attitudes and beliefs.
Thus the concern of objectivists with obtaining valid data that is “objective” and
value free is not only misplaced but totally inappropriate.

170
The central claim of Relativists is that:

‘there are no absolute criteria to hand by which we can assess either thought or
action … there are different ways of slicing up reality and gaining a valid
insight into it … there can be no absolute claims to validity”.4

Educational institutions, including teacher training institutions are perceived as

equal but different and should be given the support and encouragement to implement
their Mission Statement. The objectivists’ emphasis on comparing the quality of
educational institutions is rejected by Relativists: “comparison would be a non-
starter, for we would not be comparing like with like”. 5 This is because each
institution is in a sense unique – i.e its contextual realities, capabilities etc. are
different and often peculiar to it. Thus quality assessment must be sensitive to
differences between apparently similar educational institutions, including their
histories, explicit and implicit purposes, values and traditions.

Relativist’s conceptions of quality adopt qualitative strategies and totally reject

the quantitative techniques employed by objectivists. Qualitative strategies have
three important characteristics:

(i) a substantive concern with “the exploration of perceptions and attitudes;

and with understanding the inner meaning and significance of behaviours”;
(ii) the reliance on flexible information gathering procedures such as open-
ended interviews, participant and non-participant observation and the
use of unobtrusive measures;
(iii) the application of Grounded theory in the analysis and interpretation of
data, the identification of important issues/themes, the construction of
hypotheses, including typologies and classifications.6

A major shortcoming of Relativists’ conceptions is that they tend to confuse the

issue of intelligibility with validity, thus reducing quality assessment to mere
description. While it is necessary to understand the view points of staff and students
of an institution and its peculiar Mission Statement, tradition, values and history,
that does not mean that quality assessment should be reduced to the collection of
the perspectives of institutional managers, students, teachers or parents nor are
the perspectives or understandings of these groups necessarily correct. The failure
of Relativists to go beyond mere description of people’s perceptions and on to a
critical analysis of such perceptions is a serious weakness that hinders the
generating of valuable knowledge of educational processes and situations, including
the quality of teacher education.

Developmental conceptions of Quality

Developmental approaches to quality assessment are those approaches in which
institutional managers, staff and students of an educational institution assess their
own activities and performance. The most important concern of such approaches
is the improvement of the quality of the activities of members of the institution
i.e staff, students, and administrators. Even though the needs and concerns of

171
external agencies/interest groups are taken into account, a developmental
conception of quality is an Internalist approach to quality. This makes it differ
from Objectivists and Relativists approaches, which use external agents to assess
the quality of teacher education.

It also differs from Objectivists and Relativists conceptions in terms of its purpose.
Unlike them, it is formative not summative evaluation. The focus is on generating
data that can be used immediately to improve educational delivery.

Similarly, while the other two conceptions focus on assessing whole institutions,
the developmental conception “has its source in the activities associated with the
delivery of programmes of study. It has its force where it is used in connection
with recognizable units of educational delivery …’ 7 typically individual courses,
modules, groupings of cognate courses. It focuses on individual courses (or module
or subject) rather than whole institutions. This is not surprising since it is formative
and not summative.

Finally it triangulates qualitative and quantitative methodologies of data gathering

and data analysis, so as to tap the advantages of both and avoid the extreme
scientism of the former and the relativism of the latter. This is often called
methodological triangulation, which recognizes the complex nature of social
phenomena and hence the need to use a combination of methods in order to
collect and analyse different kinds of data.

Table I: Approaches to quality: an analytical framework

Approach Source of Dominant Whose Purpose Focus of Form of Institu-

approach level of viewpoint evalua- perfor- tional
assess- is empha- tion mance context
ment sized indicators
Objectivist External Institu- Govt., the Summative Inputs Quantita- Compara-
tions Education and tive tive
Bureau- outputs
cracy,
employers
and other
external
agencies/
groups
Relativist External Institu- The Mainly Inputs, Quantita- Non-
tions Institution summa- outputs, tive and compara-
tive, but and qualita- tive
possibly processes tive
formative (margi-
as well nally)
Develop- Internal Courses Staff and Formative Processes Qualita- Non-
mental students tive compara-
tive

Adapted from Barnett (1993)

172
Assessing the Quality of Teacher Education : The Dominant Paradigm
The assessment of the quality of teacher education in many countries is still
dominated by the Objectivist paradigm as outlined in the previous section of this
paper, despite the availability of credible evidence that it is incapable of providing
adequate insights on the educational process. The assessment procedure is
characterized by:

(i) the assumption that an objective, value-free QA is not only desirable but
attainable;
(ii) an overemphasis on the “inputs” and “outputs” of teacher training
institutions and the neglect of the educational processes in these
institutions;
(iii) an exclusive focus on quantifiable indicators and a reliance on quantitative
techniques of data gathering and analysis;
(iv) the use of external bodies to determine the quality of teacher training
faculties, departments, institutes and colleges;
(v) the focus of the QA procedures is whole institutions and the ultimate
purpose of assessment is summative.

The most remarkable feature of objectivist approaches to Quality assessment in

teacher education is its undue emphasis on comparing institutions of teacher
education using performance indicators that are supposedly “comprehensive” and
“objective” and with little regard to the concrete realities, peculiarities, history
and traditions of these institutions.

However as consistently reported in the literature, Performance Indicators when

used alone are incapable of determining the quality of institutions, especially since
they do not pay adequate attention to the internal functioning of such institutions
especially the educational process; and more importantly they ignore value-added
measures (Pollit, 1990; Barnett, 1986; and Williams and Loder, 1990). As Bergquist
and Armstrong (1986) observed:

In higher education … we have tended to look at quantitative “input” indicators to

identify and assess what we mean by high quality … These quantitative measures
are important. They provide descriptions that give us a profile or outline of an
institution. But they do not tell the whole story … they tell us little about the
institution in terms of either the “output” of the college or university or what
actually occurs within the institution with regard to the process of education.
(Quantitative) measures of output, in isolation, provide very little information
regarding the true quality of programmes being offered by the college or university…
The quality of an educational programme can be adequately assessed only if one
can determine the extent to which the programme has directly contributed to the
desired outcome. This is called the “value added” definition of quality (Bergquist
and Armstrong 1986; 1-2)

Pollit (1990) has for example shown how the use of P.I.s in Britain has failed to
measure important dimensions of university quality such as: access, social benefits,

173
competence of staff, and the moral, aesthetic and intellectual growth of students
as opposed to the acquisition of skills and employability. He notes with dismay
“how remote most of the indicators are from measuring anything to do with the
strategic objectives of higher education (Pollit 1990: 68-69).

Assessing the Quality of Teacher Education: A Synthetic Approach

The inadequacy of objectivist approaches to Quality Assessment suggests that an
alternative approach to assessing the quality of teacher education is urgently needed
– an approach which in our view must be able to provide useful insights on not only
“inputs’ and ‘output’ but also the ‘educational process’.

Such an approach is the synthetic Approach to QA. A synthetic approach recognizes

the limitations and strengths of the three approaches to QA discussed in this paper.
What it seeks to do is to tap the strengths of these approaches while avoiding their
pitfalls and flaws.

A synthetic approach to Quality Assessment will in our view be able to provide

adequate insights both to the quantifiable dimensions of an institution’s performance
and also the process-variables, which are qualitative in nature. Such an approach
therefore requires the use of some form of performance indicators in order to
obtain data on inputs (e.g how many? how much?) and output-oriented measures
such as student characteristics when they are admitted and when they graduate;
employability etc. It must however be borne in mind that this kind of data lacks
depth and is a poor measure of an institution’s performance. What is needed is the
triangulation of this quantitative approach with qualitative methods (especially
participant observation, and unstructured interviewing, documentary sources etc.)
in order to obtain data on:

The quality of teaching: The relevant sources of data for quality of teaching
includes students, academic staff within the colleges and universities and the reports
of external examiners. This also includes peer review of course content, teaching
methods and evaluation techniques and classroom observation of teacher’s teaching
ability and student’s learning.

The quality of research: The data sources for this include publications in reputable
journals, peer assessment of the quality of one’s work; external assessors etc.

The quality of learning: This includes a systematic attempt to relate what students
know when they are first admitted and what they know at each successive level,
including what they know when they graduate. Both norm-referenced and criterion
referenced tests may be useful here plus measures of perspective transformation,
critical abilities, and aesthetic and moral development. Obviously most of these
require the use of qualitative rather than quantitative techniques.

Organizational efficiency and effectiveness: Data sources include minutes of

meetings of committees, departments, faculty boards, senate, council etc; view of

174
members of committees, boards etc, direct observation over a reasonably long
period of time etc.

It should by now be clear that the synthetic approach outlined above involves all
members of the academic community in the assessment of quality – i.e students,
staff and management. In addition external assessors chosen by the institutions
themselves have an important role to play especially in the assessment of the quality
of research and teaching. The approach has an implicit faith in the professional
competence of academics, their peers and external assessors to engage in self-
critique and critical discourse on the quality of their teaching and research for
the purpose of professional development and the improvement of learning.

How will a Synthetic approach to Quality Assessment look like in reality? In the next
section of the paper we outline the use of this approach to assess the quality of a
recently introduced pre-service open and distance education programme being
implemented by the National Teachers’ Institute Kaduna, namely the Pivotal Teacher
Training Programme (PTTP).

Using ODL Strategies to address shortfalls in Teacher supply: The Pivotal

Teacher Training Programme in Nigeria
The Pivotal Teacher Training Programme (PTTP) is the Federal government’s response
to the problem of inadequate supply of teacher for the Universal Basic Education
programme (UBE) it launched in 1999. Available statistics indicate that as at 2001
Nigeria had 420,000 primary school teachers. It was projected that by 2006 there
would be 27.5 million pupils in the nation’s primary schools and they would need
916,000 teachers.(Jegede 2001:10)

As indicated above, the total number of teachers required for the effective
implementation of the U. B. E by the year 2006 is 916,000. At least 40,000 teachers
need to be produced annually if the current and projected shortfalls are to be
met. It is in the context of these shortfalls that the Federal Government directed
the National Teachers Institute to design and implement the PTTP. The National
Teachers Institute trains teachers exclusively using Open and Distance Learning
strategies. Established in 1976, the Institute has organized upgrading courses,
workshops and seminars for over half a million primary and secondary school teachers
in the past 25 years.

The Objectives of the PTTP

The PTTP is an 18-month course made up of 15-month tuition and 3 months of
internship. The main goal of the programme is to produce highly motivated and
effective teachers for primary schools. At the end of the programme it is expected
that students would have:

I. acquired adequate knowledge of the subject matter

II. acquired pedagogical proficiency for effective teaching
III. imbibed relevant values and attitudes that would make them develop positive
attitudes towards the teaching profession

175
 IV. acquired basic background for further continuous upgrading and updating
programmes in the teaching profession

Candidates are nominated by Local Government Education Authorities and must

have completed senior secondary education and possess at least a minimum of
three credits in the SSCE/GCE examination or be holders of a Diploma in a relevant
subject.

Programme Delivery
The main medium of delivery is printed self-instructional texts organized in the
form of modules. There are 10 units in a module and every subject has 12 modules.
The subjects are made up of five core subjects which every student must pass i.e
English, Mathematics, Education, Integrated Science and Social Studies; and two
optional subjects selected from among the following: Physical and Health Education,
one Nigerian language i.e Igbo, Hausa, or Yoruba, Christian Religious Studies, Islamic
Religious Studies, Home Economics and Agricultural Science. Students’ register for
all the core subjects and two optional subjects.

There are eight months of weekend contact sessions i.e 187 hours at designated
study centres and 175 hours of intensive contact sessions during school holidays,
also at the designated Study Centres. There are 722 Centres for the 39,462 students
enrolled in the first and second sets of the programme. The Centres are located in
36 out of the 37 states of the country and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. In
addition every student must undergo eight weeks of supervised teaching practice.
Apart from the printed self-instructional texts and the contact sessions, audio and
video recordings are also provided so as to enrich the students understanding of
the subject matters.

The first set of students were enrolled in two batches of 19,075 and 20,387 in
August 2000 and May 2001 respectively. Out of the 19,075 of the first batch of the
first set, 12,955 (70.1%) have graduated; and out of the 20,387 students of the
second batch,15,587 (80.6%) have graduated. Thus the total graduate output from
August 2000 to date is 28,542. There are 29,326 students currently enrolled in the
programme. (NTI Kaduna 2003)

The Quality Assurance Framework for the PTTP

The Quality Assurance Framework (QAF) is a multistage evaluation procedure that
uses qualitative and quantitative strategies of gathering data and involves all
stakeholders (i.e Local Governmrnt Education Authorities, State Primary Education
Boards, State Ministries of Education, The Universal Basic Education Commission,
School teachers and Headmasters, students, communities and the National Teachers
Institute).The process is led by consultants drawn from twelve Institutes of Education
of Nigerian Universities. The QAF seeks to :

 Provide a forum for the continuous improvement of the programme,

 Establish minimum standards in the following areas: entry qualification,
curriculum content, pedagogical skills, pedagogical environment, trainee

176
 performance and determine the adequacy and effectiveness of the teaching
and learning processes, etc
 Establish a baseline data on trainees,
 Provide a basis for continuous programme monitoring and evaluation and
apply corrective measures,
 Facilitate tracer studies on the graduates of the programme

A technical working group consisting of the National Teachers’ Institute, the

Universal Basic Education Programme, Institutes of Education of the University of
Ibadan, University of Nigeria Nsukka and Ahmadu Bello University Zaria and other
agencies of the Federal Ministry of Education was established. The Committee
meets once a month for programme appraisal.

Twenty seven instruments are used for Quality Assurance and Quality control and
are categorized into:

Instruments that measure the quality of transactions i.e delivery of

instruction, teaching practice, continuous assessment, and examinations,

Instruments that measure the quality/ adequacy/relevance of the content
of the curriculum,

Instruments that measure the quality, effectiveness and efficiency of the
course tutors at the study centres,

Instruments that measure the attitudes of the students towards the
programme

Instruments that measure the exit performance of the PTTP products

Instruments for conducting Tracer Studies that would evaluate the on-
the-job performance of the PTTP graduates.

Monitoring, (including subject monitoring, routine monitoring, class observation

and teaching practice monitoring), is an in-built quality assessment mechanism that
is conducted regularly, during which the aforementioned instruments are
administered and the data generated are analysed and used in decision making and
course improvement.

Qualitative and Quantitative research strategies are triangulated in order to generate

comprehensive, valid and reliable data on all aspects of the programme.
(For a detailed Report on the utilization of the QAF to assess the quality of the
PTTP see Mohammed and Durodola 2002).

Conclusion
Objectivist approaches are the most dominant approaches to QA in teacher
education. While such approaches do have an important role to play in Quality
Assessment, they provide an incomplete picture of the quality of the educational
process and tend to focus mainly on the quantitative dimensions of quality
assessment i.e the inputs and outputs of educational institutions. A more fruitful
approach that provides greater understanding of the quality of educational

177
institutions is one that triangulates quantitative and qualitative approaches to
Quality and sees the educational process as an equally important dimension of
quality assessment.

References
Barnett, R., (1993) Improving Higher Education: Total Quality care. Milton Keynes: SRHE/
OUP.

Barnett, R., (1992) “The Idea of Quality: Voicing the Educational”. Higher Education
Quarterly, 46, 1, Winder.

Bergquist, H.W. & Armstrong .J. (1986) Planning Effectively for Educational Quality.
London: Jossey-Bass

Hammersley M.& Atkinson, P. (1983) Ethnography: Principles in Practice London:

OUP.

Jegede, O. (2001) “Open and Distance Learning and Professional Teacher

Development in the Emerging Global Age”. Paper presented at the Sensitisation
Workshop on Systematic and Continuous Training Programme for Teachers, organized
by the Universal Basic Education Programme, Abuja, 11th -13 th October 2001.

Johnes, J. & Taylor, J. (1990) Performance Indicattors in Higher Education. Milton Keynes:
OUP

Lawn, M. (1991) “Social Constructions of Quality in Teaching”; in Grace, G. &

Lawn, M. (eds) – Teacher Supply and Teacher Quality: Issues for the 1990s Clevedon,
Avon, UK: Multi Lingual Matters Ltd

Middlehurst, R. (1992) “Quality: An Organising Principle for Higher Education?”

Higher Education Quarterly, 46, 1, Winter.

Mohammed, A.M.& Durodola,S.L (2002) Quality Assurance in Open and Distance

Learning: The PTTP Perspective. NTI Monograph on Distance Learning,no.1

National Commission For Colleges of Education (1990) Accreditation Manual Kaduna:

NCCE

National Teachers’ Institute Kaduna (2003) Annual Report 2002. Kaduna: NTI Press

Pollit. C. (1990) “Measuring university performance: Never mind The Quality, Never
Mind the Width”. Higher Education quarterly, 44, 1

NUC (1990) Accrediation of Nigerian Universities: A Handbook. Lagos: NUC

178
Shutz, A. & Moss, P.A., (1999) “Habermas, Arendt, and the Tension Between Authority
and Democracy in educational standards: the Case of Teaching Reform.” Philosophy
of Education (USA), 1, 42 – 53.

Umar, A. (1993) “Assessing the Quality of Universities: the Limitations of Performance

Indicators” in Umar A. Et al (eds) Contemporary Issues in University Education in
Nigeria. Sokoto: FEES, UDUS

Umar, A. (2002) “Assessing the Quality of Teacher Education in Nigeria”, in Mohammed,

A.M and Umar A (eds) Teacher Education in Nigeria: Past, Present and Future. Kaduna:
NTI Press

William, G. & Loder .C., (1990) “The Importance of Quality and Quality Assurance.”
in Loder .C.P. (ed) Quality Assurance and Accountability in Higher Education. London:
Kogan Page.

179
180
 Digitalizing Quality Assessment and
Accreditation Procedures:
Approach for the Indian Model (Digital NAAC)

Prof. Ram G. Takwale*

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council of India has been established to
assess and accredit quality of nearly 15000 colleges, 350 universities and their
programs of education, which could be over 100 thousand. The task is so enormous
that any attempt to do it by the processes established so far is never likely to
accomplish even a small part of it. It is therefore essential to evolve some electronic
methods that could enable NAAC to give every institution at least a provisional
grade and help institution in its efforts in raising quality.

The Vision of NAAC is ‘to make quality the defining element of higher education
in India through a combination of self and external quality evaluation, promotion
and sustenance initiatives’. It has adopted a process, which uses self-evaluation
and external evaluation by Peer Team comprising of senior academicians well trained
in the assessment and accreditation methodology. During the last year or so the
NAAC has multiplied the visits by employing more peer teams and have arrived at
the rate of about 1000 institutions per year. This pace of assessment could be
maintained, even increased up to some limit, by eliminating the factors that
introduce subjectivity and inconsistency that have already surfaced. It is highly
essential to increase reliability of the NAAC assessment by bringing more transparency
in the process of evaluation by the peer team. A grievance redressal system has
already been established to remove the grievances of institutions. All these problems
and measures indicate that the number of institutions assessed yearly cannot be
increased beyond some limit while maintaining high quality in the existing process
of assessment and accreditation. An approach of ‘more of the same’ is not likely
to accomplish the enormous task before the NAAC. A new paradigm needs to be
evolved.

Objectives of the ICT Supported Evaluation

It is possible to develop some alternatives in the existing methodologies by developing
fast track solutions for Quality Assessment. Since the Peer Team assessment depends
on the data supplied by the college and Peer Team’s visit is for validating the data
and claims in the Self Assessment Report (SAR) of the institution, it is possible to
isolate objective and subjective parts in the criteria and core indicators identified
by NAAC; and use the information for giving provisional grade on the basis of objective
information obtained. However, the reliability of the data is always an issue.

It is also possible to conceive a situation in which all the data of the institution,
and its activities such as teaching, learning, evaluating, managing etc could be
collected on-line over the institutional LAN or WAN. A software could in principal

*Chairman-EC, National Assessment and Accreditation Council, Bangalore, India

181
be developed that would be able to give grade on the basis of information collected
by following qualitative and quantitative methods. This could be done if the
institution starts managing its activities with total e-governance. Collection and
analysis of information from the institution could be stored in the institutional
server, represented on its website and shared with NAAC. Both the institution and
NAAC would have to develop capacity to use Information Communication Technology
(ICT) by creating related infrastructure and expertise. One way is therefore to
conceive digital or electronic assessment and accreditation (e-AA) process for
NAAC with the following objectives (Digital NAAC) :

Use e-governance for all internal activities and operations of NAAC.

Create and maintain NAAC portal for all Assessment and Accreditation related
operations and activities carried out for institutions.

Network all educational institutions with NAAC to create its Network.

Create e-framework that enables institutions to collect, analyze and present
information for self and external Quality Assessment.

Ensure website for each institution with all essential information for public
and NAAC use.

Develop on-line continuous Assessment and Accreditation process

Develop objective and consistent Quality Assessment system for Capability
Building and Maturation of institutions.

It is therefore essential to use ICT extensively to achieve the objectives of NAAC

related to larger number of institutions and programs. Development of NAAC Network
that links all the Indian institutions for the assessment and accreditation purposes
is the first step extremely vital for approaching the huge task.

Use of IT in a Driven Way

IT is used in two ways. IT enabled way helps to communicate and share information
faster, to increases coverage, to record and analyze and to present information
quickly. However it does not change the paradigm. The processes & systems remain
the same and hence the paradigm is the same.

IT driven way, besides doing the IT enabled functions, introduces user-friendly

decision making system by building new processes and systems based on institutional
databases and rules & regulations. This results in new paradigms when we use
databases and networks extensively. The process also enables customization or
personalization often called mass-personalization.

In the field of education many software are already available for Learner and Learning
Management System (LMS), Content Management System, e-Educational Environment
etc. MKCL in Maharashtra is operating with 3500 network access centers all over
Maharashtra with total e-governance and have served one million students within
three years with on-line examination and results (www.mkcl.net). A software and
operation for on-line and on-demand examination with Personalised examination is
employed in computer literacy program (www.eth.net). Admission to Pune University
programs for external registration is now done on-line with personalization approach.

182
Farm specific advise is available form experts who gets along with query from the
farmer all the farm specific data and details for his advise. (www.parivartan.net).
Digital colleges and digital university environments are now available with many
software companies for applying it to all activities in institutional functions that
may lead to paperless operations. The technology is available. We have to use it for
the purpose of NAAC Assessment and Accreditation.

Digital NAAC- Issues and Concerns

The major issues and concerns in the establishment of e-AA are the development
of:
1. Fast track methods for e-AA for nearly 14000 colleges and 300 universities
with wide variety of contextual and developmental variations with differing
capabilities.
2. e-Framework and network based processes for e-AA
3. e-Education AA software to be used by every institution that enabled it
to gather and supply the data through its local and NAAC network.
4. Capacity building for the institution to use the e-AA processes and
framework for self-evaluation and accreditation.
5. Continuous support to institution by NAAC in its efforts in building capability
& achieving maturation.
6. Customization of QAA processes for each institution in the local and goal
specific contexts with universal measurement indicators and measures.

This is obviously an enormous task and cannot be approached and solved in a short
time. An iterative process has to be evolved by which continuous change and reform
could be employed so as to achieve the goals with in a decade or so.

NAAC Framework of Seven Criteria- Appropriateness

By studying the existing models of quality assessment employed by different
countries the NAAC has evolved its Seven Main Criteria. The first question that
could be asked is about their completeness and exhaustiveness to cover all the
educational processes that any institution carries out. The Seven Criteria employed
by the NAAC are:

1. Curricular Aspects
2. Teaching Learning and Evaluation
3. Research, Consultancy and Extension.
4. Infrastructure and Learning Resources.
5. Student Support and Progression.
6. Organization and Management
7. Healthy Practices

We have considered the following seven processes as the complete set of Founding
Processes for any institution:

1. Teaching,
2. Learning

183
 3. Evaluating
4. Creating and Preserving Knowledge,
5. Developing Institutional Infrastructure,
6. Managing Education, and
7. Creating Educational Environment

The first three could be combined in the process of Educating; however, its
institutionalization requires the remaining four processes. A mapping of the two
sets of criteria and processes could be done easily with the conclusion that the
NAAC Seven Criteria are the complete set of all the educational processes for any
educational institution.

The NAAC has recently identified 42 core indicators to describe the seven criteria.
Seven criteria and 42 indicators then could be re-defined as main processes and
processes to describe entire institutional activities and interactivities. This would
no doubt be the first step in e-AA; to define the 7;Criteria and 42 Core Indicators
as processes and arrive at finite set of Core Processes along with their indicators
and measures.

Core Values for Re-Assessment and Accreditation

India is a developing country and the present system of education has been evolved
from the British System of Education adopted in India during the second half of
nineteenth century. Even though many changes and additions have been made in
the educational system to evolve Indian System of Education, the task is unfinished.
All the reforms and changes suggested in the post-independence period have some
main features in common- developmental linkages, social service, extension education
and cultivation of Indians value system enshrined in the Constitution of India. The
India System of Education should address the issues of Indian developing society;
and offer center stage leadership to the communities and people around the
institution through its educational programs and graduates. The NAAC has identified
and adopted after national consultation five core values to become guiding elements
in re-assessment and accreditation processes. The five core values for educational
system are related to:

1. Relating to national development.

2. Nurturing global competencies among students.
3. Inculcating value system.
4. Promoting use of technology, particularly ICT.
5. Institutionalizing quest for excellence.

For the second phase of quality assessment it is obligatory for the institution to
establish Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) and for developing total quality
management; and a website to communicate with stakeholders.

Here the task is to relate criteria and core indicators to core values. This linkage
offers variety of ways of carrying out educational programs depending on local
context, goals, mission and objects of the institution. This localization of education

184
needs customization in the context of globalisation, the universal nature of
education.

NAAC Quality Assurance Model - Based on Industrial Model of Education

The NAAC model of Quality Assessment and Accreditation, and for that matter many
models employed in quality assessment all over the world, are essentially based on
Industrial Model of Education. The model emphases input-process-output with
uniform standardization in its processes of assessment. The educational processes
are mostly going on through interactivities that take place between teachers,
learning resources and peers with students, and interactivities are hard to record
and measure with reliable methods and scale. The quality assessment is therefore
carried out mostly on the basis of input and output data by assuming that, if these
are of high quality, the processes would also be of high quality. Since the learner
development for his/her personal and social development is the goal of education,
the models fall short of measuring the essentials. This give rise to too many anomalies
dependent on the model as well as the shortcomings of the measures and
methodologies employed in the system. These are the inherent deficiencies in any
human and educational evaluation processes. Hence subjective part associated
with the peer team is an essential component in the quality assessment system;
and the subjectivity could be minimized but cannot be eliminated altogether.

The Industrial Model has another major weakness; it centralizes and standardizes
the processes, streamlines them by ensuring linearity and hierarchy. All these go
against the autonomy of the students in their learning and of teachers and institution
in their offerings. With the extensive use of ICT it is possible, in near future if not
now, to develop Informational Model that is non-linear, non-centric by giving enough
freedom to localize and customize the globalised aspects of education with localized
development and community / society based contexts. The globalisation and
localization demand proper mix of the two; decentralization in the global context,
and personalization in learning processes in the local context. These factors, we
believe, would lead to customization and localization of the quality assurance
mechanisms in the global context.

Studies and Development of e-AA

NAAC has already started a research project in partnership with University of Pune
to evolve these ideas, processes and programs of quality assessment through digital
methods. At this stage one can visualize the general direction along which the
program could be developed for e-AA. We propose to carry out the following steps:

Defining the Criteria and Core Indicators as processes and study for
their completeness and exhaustiveness in the light of five core values
identified by NAAC.

Identify the information gathering sources and processes and go down
to the information generated at activities level for collecting information
for each core indicator describing processes and sub-processes.

Separate out objective and subjective parts in the processes and core
indicators and devise methods for assessing them.

185

Develop scales and benchmarks on the basis of those already used or on
the basis of criteria references used by the best experts and institutions.

Identify the weightages and qualifiers in the measurement processes
and indicators so as to arrive at measures and grades for each main process/
criteria.

Give Provisional AA on the basis of objective data presuming that it forms
the major part.

Develop Methodology for AA on the basis electronic collection and analysis
of information by associating peer experts so as to take care of objective
part as well as validation.

The program developed has to be tried in some institutions before recommending

it to all institutions. The framework should be based on constant learning and
reforming so as improve the reliability and consistency of the process evaluation
and accreditation.

Digital NAAC- Process for Re-Assessment and Accreditation

Once the institution is linked with the rest of the institutions and NAAC by the
electronic network and starts using environment that records activities on line,
the staff and the head of the institution would be getting the information and its
analysis in terms of the criteria indicators which should give them the grade they
have achieved within their existing capabilities. The IQAC can coordinate all the
quality related development and start achieving maturation of all the processes
and sub-processes they have identified and adopted. A Peer Team could be associated
not only for one time visit but for continuous over-viewing and advising the institution
in their efforts of improving the quality. The communication would obviously be
with the help of Internet and could be shared with NAAC. The institution, when
ready for assessment and accreditation, may submit its self-appraisal report to the
NAAC and Peer Team and claim a grade. The Peer Team may make a visit at a convenient
point of time and validate the information and accept the claim or change by giving
reasons. In fact relationship of the institution and the Peer Team should be like a
guide or mentor in helping the institution to develop to its highest levels of maturation
and capabilities. The process could be kept transparent, accountable and open to
stakeholders of the institution. This self-evaluation process alone would eliminate
many of the model and method dependent deficiencies. The ultimate goal of the
institution is to rise to the higher levels of its capabilities and maturation in giving
the best support and services to learners in their development. The shift here is in
the emphasis on self-evaluation from its currently dominated external evaluation
to self-assessment and accreditation supported by the Peer Team.

Partnership of UGC - NAAC and Institution

NAAC should develop itself by creating appropriate instruments, environment and
resources to support efforts of each institution in India in raising its capability and
maturity that would help the institution in Capability Building and Maturation leading
towards internalization of Total Quality Management. The whole program has three
major programs in enhancing quality in education:

186
 1. Achieving Maturation in quality assurance processes within the Capability
of the institution.
2. Building Capability to offer better facilities and services to the learners
in their developmental efforts, and
3. Developing Institutional Educational System within the institutional and
regional/national/international contexts by offering many alternatives in
developmental processes and support services to learners.

NAAC and UGC have a great role to play in helping each institution to achieve the
highest quality by giving networked support in content, courses, capacity and
capability building, and in developing the Indian System of Education appropriate
to the Indian diversity, developing nature and culture.

187
188
 Incorporating ICT into Teacher Education
Curriculum of Bangladesh

Prof. Monira Hossain*

Section I

Beginning of Quality Assurance (QA) Chapter

In a society education is an extremely important enterprise because the final
product of this enterprise is a responsible and responsive citizen. The educative
process that the citizen has gone through determines the quality of a citizen in
terms of moral, ethical and literate standards. In this educative process at any
level, the classroom teacher is the most important person in the hierarchy of
education and an important decision maker. Her/his dedication to the profession,
teacher training, depth of subject matters, resourcefulness, readiness to apply
innovative new/research findings, and experiment with new educational technologies
will help tremendously the educative process. Teaching meaningfully means bringing
about meaningful learning, i.e., that new knowledge is functional, i.e., that the
students can reason about it and perceive its implications. Furthermore, it means
that the students obtain in the classrooms answers to questions, which they have
themselves asked. Teaching is an activity that is exposed to a variety of societal
and individual expectations. In most cases, these are not coherent with each other
or with traditional ways of teaching but contradictory and complex. It means, in
general, expectations are conveyed by a curriculum based on a vision of education
as a meaningful experience of all students.

Quality of education is an important and fundamental issue in the education sector.

It is also important that the education provider has quality staff and that the
educational materials and the delivery are of high quality also.

The Quality Assurance (QA) that we see getting popularity in the education sectors
is closely associated with business practices. The jargon of QA involves terms such
as consumers, service, products and efficiency. Traditionally tertiary education
has often considered such an approach as impropriate, but as society’s willingness
to accept institutional assurances that “ all is well” falters, many universities are
rethinking themselves in terms of a service industry accountable to their customers,
who ultimately pay the bills.

At present in Bangladesh, special attention in terms of policy and strategies are

given to primary as well as secondary classroom teachers because of their centrality
in attaining and maintaining quality education at respectively primary and secondary
levels of education. Recruiting well-qualified individuals into teaching, providing
them with relevant training, and providing incentives for effective job performance

* Professor & Dean, School of Education Bangladesh Open University, Bangladesh

189
is the cornerstone of much talked about QA’s (Quality Assurance) goals for improving
education. A common concern across QA in Bangladesh is that school teaching is
considered a low-status career. Moreover, well-qualified teachers may have increasing
alternative employment opportunities in other sectors of the economy hence the
urgent need to upgrade the situation. Provision of increased education
opportunities to the population will be relatively costly and will test the seriousness
of commitment of both governments and international agencies to quality education
for all.

To help monitor and sustain continual improvements, there is need at all levels but
particularly at the secondary school level for both practical technology and, within
the contests of teacher education curriculum. The flow of information most directly
linked to the teaching-learning process should be qualitative

In this paper an attempt is made to highlight the level of ICT present in the training
process of teacher education curriculum of Bangladesh as well to suggest a few
futuristic measures.

Technology for Assessing and Monitoring School Level Education Quality

Improving quality and efficiency at the classroom and school levels suggests, at the
minimum, information on teaching and learning conditions and potential. One
approach to building a supporting information base is to develop easily quantifiable
indicators at the school level and largely ignore classroom dynamics and intricacies
of environment. Several different evaluation and monitoring schemes of varying
complexity are currently being used in a number of developing countries. To
acquire a perspective on the utility of school-level monitoring and evaluation
schemes, two approaches may be contrasted. In one approach, indicators for
assessment of school quality are will built on information and data that are relatively
easy to collect. For example, checklists may be prepared by the ministry of
education to reflect the governments interpretation of the basic requisites for
schooling, for example adequate facilities, availability of instructional materials,
qualification of teachers, etc. These lists may be adopted by school committees,
teachers, and community representatives to include local priorities and preferences.
They do not, of course, offer deep insight into the meaning and implications of
the conditions observed. Nevertheless, such indicators may provide benchmarks
that encourage worthwhile improvements.

To provide a sharp contrast with the example above, assume that a given school
wanted to improve language achievement. The use of some simple checklist of the
presence are absence of readily visible conditions that are assumed to be significant
to school practice might still be possible. However, a more technical approach
would be to reach into the sciences of pedagogy and language to obtain: a list of
precise determinants of language achievement; analytical tools to interpret the
distinctive learning characteristics of the particular students; and criteria for
the choice of instructional technology by the teacher to be used in any given
situation.

190
In the first approach, many of the basic limitations of typical national indicator
sets are repeated at the local level. Perhaps such lists should be best seen as
providing information more useful for informing a process of discussion and debate
than offering a clear course of action for improving practice. Although this
“checklist” approach may be faulted for being too unsophisticated, the latter
appears overly ambitious. Such a level of precision of education “science” is probably
not yet attainable. In selecting any approach to building localized monitoring and
assessment, two questions persist: “who develops the technology of measurement?
” and “ For whom is a given measure satisfactory?”

One of the more promising technologies or strategies is the Fundamental Quality

Levels(FQL) movement, also referred to as the School Quality Standards or Minimum
Quality Standards movement. FQL’s are a practical tool to operationalize the
concept of school quality in a given country. The FQL consist of an agreed-upon,
predetermined set of essential inputs and conditions, and, in the long run, of
processes and outcomes related to school quality( Horn 1992). FQL’s involve the
specification of a set of minimum standards below which no school should fall.
Schools falling below FQL’s are targeted to receive special help, usually in the form
of additional resources or special programmes. For example, FQL’s might specify
that a minimum level of acceptable practice is that every student should have a
text book for each class in which a text book is required, that teachers come to
class on time, that a teacher not be absent, that the school have an operational
parent-teacher association, and that atleast 75 percent of the students pass the
national examination and graduate. FQL’s are currently being used in Benin, Ethiopia,
Ghana, and Guinea for integrating multiple indicators of school quality into larger
national school improvement initiatives.

One advantage of FQL’s is that they provide political cover for the unequal distribution
of resources. One problem in unequal distribution is that the advantaged schools
would appear to be penalized. When that happens, powerful parents complain.
FQL’s provide educators and government officials with a way of standing up to
individual self-interest, by providing a public rationale and justification against which
personal interests can be judged. A second advantage is that FQL’s provide a more
sophisticated means of favoring weak schools in resource allocation than the use
of test results as sole criterion. They incorporate each factor(e.g., test scores)
into a larger fabric of factors known(or believed) to be important student
performance. This is an advantage, of course, only if the FQL factors are really the
crucial ones, which raises another issue.

Section II
Use of ICT for Sustainable Teacher Education Quality Improvement -
Developing and Implementing a Well-Designed Teacher Education
Curriculum

Perhaps one of the simplest and least expensive actions that should be taken in
Bangladesh to improve( school level) education quality is to ensure that all teachers

191
have and know how to use a well-designed curriculum and correlative text books
for the grades they teach. Hence is need for providing an effective teacher
education curriculum for both the pre-service and in-service teachers. As
technologies are making entries into school level curriculum teacher education
curriculum have to go through total revision. The urgent approach to the
implementation and coordination of the new teacher education curriculum and
related changes is through an effective instructional strategy prepared for in-
service teachers. An appropriate teacher education curriculum should include
indicators like :

 Instructor enthusiasm
 Organisation
 Strong commitment to student interaction
 Familiarity with the technology used
 Critical support for personnel, in its teaching practice portion

Lasting improvement in education quality, whether defined in terms of basic skills,

critical thinking, self-esteem, or other pupil learning, must include an in-depth
understanding of the current conditions at the class room and school levels. As
the teacher education (TE) curriculum should be modified to fit the school
curriculum it should be ensured that the following activities encompassing ICT is
included in the TE curriculum.

a. Instruments to gather information on school context : Attempts to improve

school practice require information and analysis of those features of internal
and external school environment that impact on school management and class
room dynamics and these topics should be included in the school management
course. Generaly two assumptions run through the discussion of education
quality:

 Teacher quality- difined in terms of subject competence, pedagogic skills,

intelligence, empathy, and artistry – potentially has a powerful influence
on students learning; and

 Teacher quality is nurtured by specific school conditions such as

a) administrative encouragement of school improvement, team work,
and collaboration in planning and problem solving, and
b) Risk taking in innovative practices

Hence it can be recommended that appropriate form of ICT be used to train

the teachers and in the real school setting the trained teachers should be
encouraged to use appropriate teaching aids available at their respective schools
and create appropriate classroom situations for students’ fruitful learning.

b. Preparation of instruments on Storing Information about instruction and

learning : An information system, if it is to contribute to the improvement of
school practice, should at least assist the teachers in deciding what to do and

192
 think. Teachers need information (and teachers are, themselves, sources of
information) about what they are expected to achieve with their students,
how much instructional material is or will be available, what they are expected
to teach, and the most effective pedagogic practices. For this the teachers’
need to be computer literate and should have Internet access at work place.

c. Syllabus of an ICT-based Effective Microteaching and Simulation session :

Both government and non-government teacher training colleges in Bangladesh
are under the academic control of the National University. As BOU has a modern
media center where audio/video teaching materials can be produced on
contract basis these colleges should be encouraged to maintain contact with
BOU to acquire audio-video training materials which then could be used in
their microteaching sessions.

d. Providing management training for new roles encompassing ICT based

teaching aids:
If the trained teachers get involved into ICT-based classroom teaching they will
need to acquire skills on classroom management through short term training.
There should be mechanism or institution for continuous supply of ICT based
teaching aids also.

History related to the use of ICT in teacher education

Improving school education through radio broadcasting of curriculum based
Educational programs from Radio Bangladesh, Dhaka

Distribution, installation and maintenance of more than 1000 Audio-Control

Console sets to secondary schools for receiving redio programs and playing
audio cassettes,

Operation of ten mobile audiovisual cans; these were fitted with video-
cassette recorder and monitor

Training of school teachers in the field of modern education-technology

Evaluation & follow-up of various activities(Hossain, 2002)

Analysis of the present Quality Situation of the B.Ed Programme

The B.Ed curriculum of the National University (it is followed in the 11 government
teacher training colleges as well as in 53 private ones) has been modified and
upgraded in 1996. Institute of Education & Research (IER) of Dhaka University and
School of Education (SoE) of BOU offer their own teacher education programs.

The programme run by TTCs is of ten months duration and Dhaka TTC offers a 03-
year Honours B.Ed, IER offers a 04-year Hons. Programme and SoE offers its two-
year, four semesters long B.Ed. by open and distance mode through its 16 tutorial
centers which are spread throughout the country. Madrasha education system of
the country has its own training institute situated at Gazipur where short courses
are run for the Madrasha teachers.

193
Bangladesh Institute of Distance Education (BIDE) was formed in 1985 and eventually
it was given the task of introducing B.Ed through open and distance mode.
Bangladesh Open University (BOU) came into existence by an Act of the National
Assembly in 1992 (Act, 1992). At BOU the School of Education is closely associated
with the idea of QA and is actually helping the national education system, more the
teacher education field to develop and incorporate a QA Framework.

Recommendations
a. Continuous Education and Training for the Instructors and teacher-trainers:
Work is in progress with the Ministry of Education to provide continuous training
for the in-service secondary teachers. The World Bank funded project SESIP is
working in this direction, they are at present in the text material production
stage.
b. Quality should be ensured into the ever growing number of private teacher-
training colleges, it should be incorporated into the working policy of the
National University which gives year to year recognition to these private teacher
training colleges.

c. When the same training programs are offered by distance mode it is very
important to explore the possibility of starting some steps to ensure QA measures
collaboratively among the South Asian Open universities; and the areas could
be : learner-content, learner-instructor and learner-learner.

The learner-content interaction in the oldest form was didactic text. With
the fantastic involvement of technology in the education system this section is
now enriched by the inclusion of scientifically designed self-instructional
printed-text, content broadcast in radio and television programmes and
electronic recordings on audio, video tape and computer software. In
developed countries one of other added components is the interactive videodisk.
The second type of interaction is that between the learner and the expert
who prepares the course or text material, radio/TV lesson, etc. The third
form of interaction is peer group or learner interaction, between one learner
and other learners.

Case study II
Teaching Quality Improvement (TQI) is an ADB funded project (in Bangladesh)
to help improve the secondary education sector. Its various goals are: poverty
reduction, sustainable and equitable socio-economic development,
enhancement of the quality and efficiency of the secondary education sub-
sector and improve teaching quality. It has four significant components.

Component 1- Organizational development
Capacity building

Component 2- strengthening training- pre-service, in-service
Quality of teachers is to be improved by
strengthening this component.

Component 3 – improving teacher training facilities-
Renovation, equipment

194

Component 4- equitable access- girls and women, handicapped,
refugees, remote/rural, the under-served

BOU is to take part in component 1(quality of secondary education is improved

through organizational development and capacity building) as one of the
teacher training partners along with National University, IER of DU and
government and private TTCs.

d. To create interaction in the field of science teaching : Science now comprises

a vast area and fields of knowledge of encyclopedic proportions where even
the field of linguistics fits in very nicely. In spite of the ever increasing vastness,
it is thought that the basic generalizations, concepts and skills of science can
be taught quite substantively to any age group. It also accepted that the
degree of complexity depends on age, ability, maturity, prior experience and
knowledge of the learners.

While on the part of learners, learning science is very closely related to the
facts that they should be given the opportunity, environment to plan,
hypothesize, predict, design and carry out investigations; interpret results
and findings; draw interfaces and also be able to communicate about exploratory
tasks and experiments quite independently (COL, 1992). On this basis
investigative and project part of practical science syllabus become important.

e. Conducting Laboratory Sessions using ICT : As the trainees of the science group
don’t get chance to conduct any laboratory sessions they remain weak as far
as the skill is concerned. BOU could be approached to video record lesions
styled in frame format on different micro-teaching skills and then these lessons
can be shown to the trainees. After each video show, focus group discussion
can be held with the trainees to get their feedback on the lesson.

Collaborative efforts can be made with other Asian counterparts to increase

the motivational level of the trainees. Shared project works can be included in
the syllabus of the teacher education programs.

f. Curriculum Updating : The curriculum members of the related institutes should

regularly update the curriculum and syllabus so that there is harmony in
between the subject syllabi of the secondary school and the teacher education
curriculum. An example can be sited over here: since 1996 computer education
course is introduced as an optional subject in the IX-X grades but there is no
real effort to train the school teachers. Even the e-B.Ed. curriculum of NU,
though it has included the course computer science as an optional one doesn’t
really encourage the trainees to take the course. Evaluation procedure of the
teacher education programs should be such as to make the computer course
compulsory for the trainees.

g. Quality of Learning Materials : In Bangladesh the oldest teachers’ training college

is based in Dhaka, it was established in 1905; but the first nationally produced

195
 text materials for the B.Ed. program was produced in 1996. The modular course
books produced by BIDE and then eventually those produced by BOU’s School
of Education were serving the purpose. But unfortunately the course books
produced in 1996 are not available to the trainees. Unofficial ratings give good
credit to the books of BOU. There are still some drawbacks: the honorarium
given to course book writers is much lower than what the potential and renowed
writers can earn as consultancy fees.

h. To Develop a Mechanism of Intra-Country Co-ordination : It is time each and

every offering the teacher education programs should start to develop an
appropriate co-ordination model for effective collaboration. They should
develop ways and means of producing systems of delivery, evaluation including
appropriate and sustainable forms of ICT.

Case Study I
Efforts to incorporate Quality Assurance Measures in Teacher Education
Programs in Bangladesh

At BOU the School of Education is closely associated with the idea of QA and
is actually helping the national education system, more specially the teacher
education field to develop and incorporate a QA Framework.

References
Dekkers J., (1994) Infrastructure needs and requirements for the production of
good quality open learning materials , BOU.

BIDE (1985) B. Ed. through distance education, Ministry of Education, GoB, Dhaka.

Hossain M., Islam A., et al. (1996) Tutoring in distance education, SoE, BOU,
Dhaka.

Panda S. (1999) policies, practices and Quality Concerns in Distance Education,

Aravali Books International (Pvt.) Ltd, India.

Neilson H.D., (1997) Quality Assessment and Quality Assurance in Distance Teacher
Education, Journal of Distance Education, p. 288, Vol. 18, No.2 , USA.

COL Report (1992) Report on Round table on Science, Maths and Technical subjects’
Teaching, p.75, Vancouver, Canada.

Gatlift B., Wender F.C. (1998) Inter-Institutional Collaboration and Team Teaching,
The American Journal of Distance Education , Vol. 12, No. 1, USA.

Harry K. (Ed.) (1993) Distance Education: New Perspectives, p.60, Routledge, U.K.

196
Hossain M. Karim S., (1998) Creation of a virtual Institution by SAARC Open
Universities : Prospects and Limitations of Creating Learner-Based interactive
Network, International Conference on Collaborative and Networked learning ,
IGNOU, India.

Hossain M. (2000) Trends and Practice of Research at BOU , paper presented at

the 1 st Conference on Research in Distance Education and Adult Learning in Asia,
OUHK, June 2000; http://www.cridala
IER, DU (1996) B.Ed. (Hons.) Syllabus.

Neilson H.D., (1997) Quality Assessment and Quality Assurance in Distance Teacher
Education, Journal of Distance Education, p. 285, Vol. 8, No.2 , NU (1998) B.Ed.
(Hons.) Syllabus.

Powar, Panda Bhall (2000) Performance Indicators In Distance Higher Education,

Aravali Books International Ltd, India.

Roy A.K., Kapur A. (1995) Virtual Laboratory-Managing Laboratory instrution in the

Open Learning System, Vol. 2, p. 31, VIII AAOU Conference, IGNOU, India.

Secondary Education Sector Development (Sept. 1998) Project Proposal:

Restructuring and Improvement of Secondary Education, part V, p. 9, the Academy
for Educational Development, Dhaka.

197
198
 Role of Information and Communication
Technology for Quality Assurance of Teacher’s
Training

Prof. D. N. Sansanwal*

Introduction
At present we are living in a digitalized world where even human beings genes are
digitalized. Education is not an exception. More so teacher’s training is also
influenced by the technology at hand. This is possible only because the computer
has tremendous capacity to store huge information, fast retrieval, and processing
of both qualitative and quantitative information with out error. Further, mostly
every thing can be digitalized. There is a shift from Information Technology to
Information and Communication Technology because ICT is a broader concept than
IT. In every sphere of life the quality matters. Due to this various agencies have
come to exist with a specialized function and responsibility of quality assurance.
For public consumption the agencies put a mark on the product like ISI, egmark,
etc. that public see before buying it. Even in Education some stray efforts were
being by private magazines for Institutes of Management and also Technology. In
foreign countries students do look to the ranking of Universities and Colleges before
applying. The rankings are easily available on the Website. Now with the establishment
of National Assessment and Accreditation Council the Universities and Colleges are
being ranked and the information is available on the Website as well as in printed
form for the users. The ranking has become more important because of Globalization
of Higher Education. The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GASTS) was one
of the agreements signed under the purview of WTO ( GATS, 1995 ) which came into
force from 1996. The agreement presently covers specified services, including
educational services. It has boosted the Internationalization & Globalization of Higher
Education. In this process quality will prevail.

The assessing of quality is not every one-cup of tea. One needs to have people
with scientific outlook, honest, dedicated and academically competent. It is time
consuming and requires lot of coordination amongst the Institute, Peer Team
Members and NAAC. More time is required for going through all the available
documents and facilities. Huge information needs to be analyzed before ranking
the institute. Even the report writing takes lot of time. These and other problems
can be easily handled efficiently with the use of ICT. At present the NAAC has
evolved six criteria for assessment and accreditation of Teachers’ Training Institutes
including University Department of Education. These criteria are : Curriculum Design
and Planning; Curriculum Transaction and Evaluation; Research development and
Extension; Infrastructure and Learning Resources; Student Support and Progression;
and Organization and Management. The ICT can be used in assessing and accrediting
the teacher’s training institution on the basis of these criteria. Not only this even

*Professor, Director and Dean, Institute of Education, Devi Ahilya University, Indore, India

199
the better criteria may be evolved through the use of ICT. The whole process of
assessment and accreditation may become Objective, Reliable and Valid with the
use of ICT. The same is being elaborated in the following.

Curriculum Design and Planning

According to NAAC, this aspect requires information on how the curriculum design
of the institution offers diversity and flexibility to trainees. It also seeks information
on the practices of the institution in initiating and redesigning teacher education
courses that are relevant to the regional and national needs. The details looked
into are: Admission Procedure; Details of working and teaching days; student ability
level; Features of current syllabi and mechanism for its monitoring and mid-course
correction; Developing new Courses and gestation time for running new courses;
curriculum design etc. This criterion deals with the input part of teacher’s training
programme. The quality can be judged from the entry level. The good & reputed
teachers’ training institutes do attract quality students. This gets reflected from
the criteria used in selecting candidates. Majority of institutes either select
candidate on the basis of entrance test or marks obtained at the qualifying university
examination. It indicates that normally qualitative information is available in respect
of each admitted candidate. This information if put on website can be used for
assessment and accreditation by the Peer Team. The Peer Team can compute range,
mean, and coefficient of variation, etc. from the available information of last five
years. This is not possible at present due to not availability of database and the
time for visit is short. Peer Team members can do this analysis before visiting the
concerned institute. It will help in saving time and making the process of assessment
and accreditation systematic.

The curriculum is an important ingredient of quality teacher training programme.

The explosion of information is taking place. So it is important to keep updating
the curriculum. Normally it is observed that examining bodies, i.e. Universities do
not revise the curriculum although each university has a system of updating the
curriculum through its various committees. The University Grants Commission and
National Council for Teacher Education keep on developing curriculum and sending
it to different universities so that the existing curriculum may be revised. This
normally is not happening at present. Even today many teacher-training institutes
are still continuing with the old and outdated curriculum, It becomes an obstacles
in providing quality training. During on site validation of Self-Appraisal Report it
becomes a difficult task to go through the last five years curriculum and find the
extent to which the curriculum has been updated. The use of ICT can make the
task of analyzing, comparing and finding the latest status of curriculum easy, simple
and achievable.

Curriculum Transaction and Evaluation

This criterion refers to the process aspect of teacher training programme. It is the
most important in determining the quality of teacher training programme. It gives
information about the teaching pedagogy used in the training process. This
information is given by the institute only in listing the various methods of teaching.
In reality how teachers teach is never available in the form that the Peer Team can

200
see and come to some conclusion about the quality of the process. The ICT can
help in this aspect where random classroom transactions can be recorded and
submitted along with the Self-Appraisal Report in CD. The Peer Team can view this
before visiting the institute. At present there is no opportunity to view it during on
site validation.

At present the professional development of the faculty refers to only attending

the seminars, conferences, workshops etc. Beside this the institute hardly realize
the need to organize faculty development programme in their own institute. To
make it economically viable two – three institutes of the nearby area can organize
training programme on the topics of their choice. The training material or the
proceedings can be recorded and made available in CD to the Peer Team before
hand. The ICT can be used for training the faculty because many on line short term
training programmes are available. These should be made use of by the institute.

To make any process effective, it is essential to have a system of feedback and use
it for improving the process. The base of feedback may be the evaluation of the
teacher by the student or self. At present evaluation of teacher by student is not
done. Even if it is done, it is through paper and pencil. The analysis becomes
difficult. This can be made effective through the use of ICT. The Online evaluation
of teachers by students can be done. Its’ analysis can also be done by computer
and the feedback be given to the concerned teacher. This information by each
teacher can be put on the website and it may be used by the Peer Team before
going to the on site visit. The last three or more years evaluation may be compared
and one may find the extent to which the results of evaluation have been utilized
by the concerned teacher. Not only this even the benefit of attending the seminar,
conference, workshop, etc. can also be found out. At present, this is not happening
because the information is not available and even if it is available, it is not possible,
it is not possible to analyse it in different ways. The feasibility of doing this improves
through the use of ICT.

Evaluation is an integral part of the training system. The quality of training can be
improved by changing the mechanism of evaluation. It is the change in evaluation
system that can lead to the change in methodology of teaching, format of writing
books, developing instructional material, study habits of students, etc. At present
the papers of last three or more years of the University exams may be available but
tests given by the teacher are hardly available. Due to this, it may not be possible
to assess the quality of internal tests and know the trend of questions asked in the
subject during past three or more years. The quality of scoring can be known by
going through the answer sheets or response sheets. These are hardly made available.
The marks of students in the University exam may be available for the past three or
more years but one may not be able to see student-wise, sex-wise, etc. trend of
achievement. The marks obtained by students in different questions are not available,
so question-wise analysis, although important, but cannot be done. All this can be
made possible through the use of ICT. All the essential information can be digitalized
and made available to the Peer Team members before going to the On site validation
of SAR.

201
For the quality of process, the information will come from students, alumni, and
parents. In India this is possible only through face-to-face interaction with them.
ICT can be used but the required technical infrastructure is not available or may
be too costly. The fact-to-face interaction is possible during on ite validation of
SAR. More time can be devoted which is not possible at present. It means that ICT
cannot completely replace the on site validation of SAR.

Research, Development and Extension

It is a known fact that research can help in qualitative improvement of classroom
teaching. Teachers involved in research get developed in respect of thinking and
reasoning. These abilities will make the teaching of the person quite different and
innovative. The teaching will not remain at the information level but goes beyond
reflective level. The research work done by the teachers in the last three or more
years can be digitalized and made available to the Peer Team members before coming
to the on site validation of SAR. From this the Peer Team members can find out the
quality of research and other related issues from the information supplied by the
institute through the use of ICT.

Each teacher is expected to involve himself / herself in the development of

instructional material, psychological tool, etc. The quality of these can be assessed
by using various criteria. It is a time consuming activity. It is difficult to find time to
go through the developmental activities of each staff members and to know whether
the teacher is just repeating whatever has been done in last years or there has
been a significant change. The development reflects from the change rather than
doing something in a routine way. The quality can be judged from the development
work undertaken by the teacher provided ICT has been made use of.

Extension activities can be of different nature. The institute at present can list
the extension activities without giving many details that can be used in determining
the quality of teacher training programme. If some of the extension activities can
be shown to the Peer Team during on site visit, than it can help in better assessment.
Not only this, some of the extension activities if digitalized can be stored in CD and
given to Peer Team for analyzing it before coming to on site validation of SAR.

One must realize both strength and limitation of ICT. The deep probing is possible
through interaction with the staff. One can probe into the thinking and reasoning
power of teachers that is important requirement of quality of research, development
and extension activities. This is possible only through interaction with the teachers.
That is why during on site validation of SAR, there is a provision of interaction with
the staff. This has been quite useful. Thus, at present ICT cannot be used.

Infrastructure and Learning Resources

The quality of teacher training depends upon the proper utilization of infrastructure
and learning resources by the competent staff. This can happen only if the required
infrastructure and learning resources are available. Peer Team can better assess
this by visiting the institute. Although the details related to infrastructure and

202
learning resources can be digitalized but the reliability of availability of these is
doubtful. Further more information about the availability and utilities of
infrastructure and learning resources can be obtained during interaction with
teachers, students, alumni and parents. That is why interaction with the teachers,
students, alumni and parents is given prominent place. Nevertheless the ICT
potentiality can be fully utilized for assessing financial aspects. These days the
Tally package is available for the accounting purpose. The relevant aspect of
accounts can be stored in CD or put on the website so that Peer Team can access
it and analyze it in different ways before visiting the institute. The information can
be used to find the items on which more expenses are incurred. Different types of
probing depend upon the flexibility of the software or options available in the
software. Thus, both ICT as well as Peer Team visit are important for assessing the
institution.

Student support and Progression

The quality of teacher training programme can be enhanced provided the
progression of each student is monitored properly. The teacher knows the
importance of it but it is not feasible. This difficult task, but very important, can
be managed very easily with the help of ICT. If diagnostic tests in different subjects
are developed and computerized, than students can use it at its own and get to
know their strength and weakness. This will help students to focus on weakness
and improve upon them. The teachers can also make use of this information and
help students in improving their weaknesses. Further it is possible to depict the
progression graph of each student which can be accessed by the student, teacher
or any one concerned from any where and can be made use for giving constructive
feedback to the student. Today majority of parents are unaware about the academic
progression of their child unless the institute informs parents about it. This is
normally not done due to non-availability of facilities. ICT can make it feasible and
its impact on quality of the product can be viewed after sometime.

Alumni are a very big support to the institution in all aspects. Alumni can help in
proper placement of students. They can help institution in reorienting the academic
activities so that the output is not outdated. The field problems are told to the
teachers who can find solution through research and test the solution for its
feasibility and utility. The Alumni can help in creating infrastructure and even
enriching the academic programme. This aspect can be made more efficient through
the use of ICT. It can improve the interaction and exchange of ideas between
faculty & alumni. This is not happening in India on large scale but beginning has
been made. It needs ot be promoted.

Organization and Management

It is clear that the quality of training does depend on the planning, trained human
requirement, the procedure of recruitment, the professional development of staff,
finances, etc. The information related to Internal coordination and monitoring
mechanism; steps for improvement of organization and management; academic
calendar; faculty recruitment; professional development of non-teaching staff; fee

203
structure; heads of expenditure and excess / deficit budget; internal audit; welfare
programmes and grievance redressal system; internal academic quality check and
TQM; etc can be put on website for the benefit of people. This is not happening
today but it is not difficult because of availability of ICT. ICT is very powerful and
too flexible. The institute should get a properly developed MIS that can be used
for efficient management of an institute.

204
 Networking for Quality Assurance in Alternative
Modes of Teacher Education

Prof. Mohan Menon*

Introduction
Quality of teacher preparation and ongoing professional development is crucial to
quality of teacher performance in the classrooms leading to effective learning
among children. Role of teacher is considered to be the single most important
factor in assuring quality in the teaching-learning process. Hence, without exception
all countries, both the developed and the developing, have been placing considerable
emphasis on pre-service and in-service teacher training and also on-going professional
support of teachers. Traditionally teacher training, both pre-service and in-service,
involved face to face classes organized in institutions combined with workshop and
workplace experiences based on the multi-faceted role played by teachers in the
classroom, school and community. With the democratization of school education,
achieving universal primary education happens to be the single most priority for
most developing countries. This has put lot of pressure on the system needing
adequate infrastructure and human resources such as trained teachers to take
care of more and more children enrolling in primary education. This in turn has
also necessitated expansion of secondary education. Many developing countries
find their schools either not having enough teachers or a large chunk of teachers
are untrained.

Developments in open and distance learning and technology made it possible to

think of alternative modes of teacher preparation. Many countries are benefiting
by the use of ODL and ICT for teacher training. There have also been major changes
in approach to organizing teacher training curriculum. Innovations such as
Collaborative Reflective Practice as core to teacher training are slowly becoming
popular. In spite of these major developments and innovations in teacher training
curriculum and its organization and transaction, quality of these programmes is still
a concern among educational professionals, teacher educators and educational
policy makers. It is thus important to identify and adopt quality assurance modalities
both internal and external to the learning/training environment

Networking
Networking will involve organizational and functional linkages, cooperation and sharing
among organizations and individuals involved in alternative modes of education with
or without the use of technology. This paper attempts to present an argument
that appropriate networking among individuals and organizations from alternative
modes of training could enhance the quality of training inputs and processes. For
example courses offered by open and distance learning has benefited by content
experts from the formal educational institutions with appropriate training in
developing good self-learning materials and also for effective learner support. In

*Education Specialist, Teacher Training, Commonwealth of Learning, Vancouver, Canada

205
turn good learning materials have been very useful in face to face educational
contexts. Similarly sharing of infrastructure and human resources has been helpful
in maintaining cost-effectiveness. Hence, networking among institutions within and
across countries is crucial to assuring quality of learning systems in different modes
of education.

Towards a Total Quality Management

Quality in Teacher development is crucial to quality in schooling. Quality is a
characteristic of the products and services an organisation offers. Quality in a
teacher development programme would thus mean quality of teachers it produces
and quality of training processes it provides for. Hence it is important to have the
quality indicators related to the products and processes involved in teacher
development clearly formulated. Quality assurance (QA) is a process directed toward
achieving that characteristic. It is the set of activities that an organisation undertakes
to ensure that standards are specified and reached consistently for a product or
service. Quality Assurance involves proactive measures taken to avoid faults while
quality control (QC) involves reactive measures taken to remove faults and assessment
of quality systems — the monitoring, evaluation, and audit of procedures. A total
quality management – internal and external will be a combined mechanism of quality
assurance, quality control and continuous monitoring and evaluation (M&E).

Any teacher education programme irrespective of the mode would require a total
quality management system involving quality assurance, quality control and
continuous monitoring and evaluation. Quality indicators related to the products
and processes are to be clearly defined and formulated for a TQM to be successful.
There would be a set of QIs common across modes of teacher development (face-
to-face or ODL) while some QIs could be specific to each mode.

Teacher Development
Teacher development involves training quality teachers before they are recruited,
inducting them into the system, maintaining their quality through recurrent
retraining and on-going professional support. However, this is not always the reality
as many developing countries have to recruit fresh qualified or under qualified
persons as teachers without any initial training.

Continuum of Openness
Closed and open systems of education are not dichotomous systems but they come
in a continuum of openness. Hence, each instance of teaching-learning system
could be placed at a point in the continuum according to the extent of openness.

Closed Open

FF1 FF2 ODL1 ODL2

206
For example a typical lecture based face to face situation in a formal class room is
a pretty closed system of education (FF1) while another face to face context might
be more learner centred and providing flexibilities of entry and subject choices
and thus more open (FF2). Similarly there could be varied degrees of openness in
ODL based learning systems.

Time and place matrix: Experiences within Open and Distance Learning
The following matrix provides a range of examples of instructional techniques/
methods

Same Time Different Time

Same Place
Face to face interaction
Individual tutoring or

including lecture, contact in the institution
group work, etc
Small group discussions/

Conferences, symposia laboratory work in

Etc. institutions/study centres

by shift

Library reading

Etc.

Different Place
Broad cast
Self-learning materials

Online chat
E-mail communication

Teleconference
Postal communication

Etc.
Etc.

Some of the experiences such as class room lectures happens at the same time and
place thus requiring learners to be present at that time at the same place. While
individual based contact sessions or counselling might happen at the same place
but different time for different students. Broadcast is a good example of learning
organised at the same time of the broadcast for all but learners might be listening
to a radio broadcast or viewing a television programme in different places.
Techniques like reading self-learning materials and e-mail communication are
examples of very flexible experiences as learners can go through that at ones own
place and time.

ICT Spectrum
Information and Communication Technology involves a variety of technologies ranging
from simple technology like print based communication to on-line or internet based
communication. Each of these technologies has a place in learning according to
the learning objectives, availability of infrastructure and access, learner profile,
etc.

Print - Radio - ATR - TV - VCR - Teleconference - Computer - Internet

207
Towards integration of Alternative Modes of Training
Due to inability of traditional training colleges being able to train sufficient teachers
to support the expanding primary and secondary education, alternative modes
such as evening colleges and ODL based teacher training programmes. Many
developing and developed countries have designed and implemented in-service
teacher training programmes using ODL and ICT. Alternative modes of training need
not be seen as parallel modes competing each other. There is more and more
convergence of different modes of training. It is possible to think of integrating
modes by mixing techniques and technologies of various types leading to custom
made systems of teacher training suiting different needs and contexts. The trends
visible today include:

Face to Face education using appropriate ICTs and becoming more open
and flexible

Single mode institutions becoming dual mode

Need and context based designing of instructional and training systems

Paradigm shift from teacher-controlled to learner-controlled scenario

Use of variety of self-instructional materials suiting the learning styles and
convenience of learners

COL: Fostering Networking and Partnership

Commonwealth of Learning set up in 1988 as an inter-governmental organization by
the Commonwealth heads of states is keen to foster networking and partnership
among Ministries of education, institutions and organizations in the government
and non-governmental agencies. In the area of teacher development efforts made
to network include facilitating and forging linkages among teacher education
institutions and accrediting agencies and non-governmental organizations within
and across countries. Some specific initiatives leading to networking are the
following:

Networking institutions and agencies concerned with teacher education

Consortia being facilitated in West Africa, East Africa and South Asia

Joint production of teacher training materials by eight southern African
countries- STAMP 2000+

Linking institutions/agencies across countries

South-south cooperation where ever feasible

Emerging Partnership of Institutions in Nigeria for Teacher Training in Basic

Education- A Case Study
Here is a case to show how networking can help in enhancing quality. The catalyst
role that COL has been playing in facilitating and strengthening ODL based teacher
development in various institutions in Nigeria is leading to networking of several
institutions concerned with EFA and teacher development. The figure given in this
section indicates the emerging partnerships and enhancement of quality in the
programmes.

208
The focus of COL’s intervention in Nigeria has been for strengthening teacher
education programme by ODL and facilitating the revival of an open university in
Nigeria- National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). The National Teachers’ Institute
(NTI) which is responsible for all in-service teacher training programmes by distance
mode is a single mode distance education institution dedicated for teacher
education set up in the seventies. It needed strengthening and rejuvenation and
thus formed the focus of COL when it restarted its activities in the Nigeria. The
performance of NTI was marred by a very apprehensive attitude of most professionals
in education regarding the effectiveness of teacher training by ODL. This was mainly
due to the history of corresponding education for teacher training in Nigeria. The
National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) which is responsible for giving
grants for primary teacher education institutions and quality assurance in the sector
had stopped all correspondence courses for teacher education and allowed only
NTI to offer distance teacher education courses. Hence, it was important for COL
to bring NCCE on board and strengthen its link between NTI. COL provided awareness
about ODL and use of technology to top management in NCCE and all provost of
about 70 primary teacher education colleges responsible of pre-service teacher
education in the country. This did help in change of mind-set in NCCE and the
colleges to some extent. Support from the teacher education colleges was very
crucial for course development and learner support for NTI. Several provosts of
these colleges have been participating in the Management Development Institutes
being organized by COL with the Government of Singapore in Singapore and with
the National Council of Educational Research and Training in New Delhi. COL also
provided the expertise of a consultant to interact with NCCE and NTI in formulating
performance indicators and norms and standards for teacher education courses.

209
 Networking for QA in Teacher Education in Nigeria- A Case Study

Involvement in course development and

Colleges of Education
provision of learner support for ODL and
uses materials produced by NTI

NAAC, India QA and

accreditation
NCCE
Development and offer in TE
of in-service teacher
training courses by Use of ODL for
ODL ongoing teacher

NTI UBEP support

NCERT, India

EFAU
West African Policy making
Consortium for EFA

NCME Training of Literacy

and AE personnel

NOUN
Using ODL for
Training of
NCNE
Training
secondary School facilitators of
teachers marginalised
community

NTI : National Teachers’ Institute

NCCE : National Commission for Colleges of Educa tion

NOUN : National Open University of Nigeria

CTE : Colleges of Teacher Education

NCERT : National Council of Educational Research and Training

UBEP : Universal Basic Education Programme

NCME : National Commission for Mass Education

EFAU : Education for All Unit

NCNE : National Commission for Nomadic Education

N A A C : National Accreditation and Assessment Council

210
COL is in the process of a dialogue with the Universal Basic Education Programme
(UBEP), National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE) and the National
Commission for Mass Education (NCME) with an aim to facilitate their activities for
ongoing teacher support in primary schools, training of teachers of nomadic
education and training of large number of facilitators involved in literacy programmes
and adult and continuing education. Possible linkages will be forged between these
agencies and NTI in order to complement their functioning and becoming more
cost effective.

In addition to networking among agencies and institutions within Nigeria, NTI is a

member of the West African Consortium for Teacher Education in which four other
Commonwealth countries of the region are involved. NTI contributes to this
Consortium as well as benefits from it. NOUN is setting up regional capability in the
form a centre facilitated by COL which could provide support to all activities in
ODL in the region.

Another important initiative facilitated by COL is to develop linkages among

institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia . There has been some exchange
of personnel. Preparations are on to have MOUs signed between NCCE and National
Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC), India in the area of quality assurance
and accreditation and between NTI and NCERT, India for adapting a PG Diploma in
Guidance and Counselling developed by NCERT in Nigeria. COL is planning to facilitate
exchange of personnel between NCCE and NAAC as part of a tripartite arrangement.
It is hoped that in the coming years SSA and SA will develop strong south-south
collaboration especially in the area of quality assurance in teacher education.

Possible Areas of Networking for QA

There are several possibilities of networking for quality assurance in the area of
teacher education. Some of these are:

Collaboration/cooperation among QA Agencies for sharing experiences,

building joint/hyper linked websites, developing global/pan-Commonwealth
QA indicators including input, process and output components

Use of satellite infrastructure for networking of TE institutions and agencies

in Commonwealth countries of S. Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa facilitating
activities such as implementing QA related activities, joint offer of courses
and sharing of experiences

Developing and implementing ODL/ICT based programmes for ongoing

professional development of teachers and teacher educators within or
across countries

Documenting flexible and innovative practices for teacher development in

the Commonwealth including experiences in pre-service and in-service
training and on-going professional development activities

211

Developing self-instructional (print and multi-media) modules/courses for
orienting teacher educators on QA in teacher education

Sharing of materials, both print and multi-media, for training of teachers

and QA in TE

Exchange of personnel involved in QA in teacher education within and

across countries and regions in the Commonwealth

Conclusion
There are various possibilities of collaboration. Some of them would involve policy
decisions at inter-governmental level. For example, the possibility of using the
Indian satellite EDUSAT in Sub-Saharan Africa might be highly feasible from technical
point of view, policy decisions are essential to make it possible. However, there are
several areas of cooperation that could be initiated and developed at inter-
institutional level. COL could play a significant role in facilitating such cooperation.
COL has already facilitated the creation of a East African Consortium for Teacher
Education Development (EACTED) similar to the West African Consortium. Similarly,
it has initiated thinking to facilitate the creating of a South Asian Consortium for
Teacher Education (SACTED). While each Consortium will identify areas of activities
relevant to each region, there would be need for various regional consortia to
cooperate among themselves developing a network of Consortia. It is equally
important to identify relevant themes related to quality assurance in teacher
education and deliberate on them in the teacher education community in the
Commonwealth. In continuation to the present Roundtable, COL could facilitate
Roundtables on different themes in other regions of the Commonwealth.

References
Commonwealth of Learning (2002). STAMP 2000+ Science, Technology and
Mathematics Programmes- A set of teacher training materials, Vancouver

Commonwealth of Learning (2003). Towards Improving Quality of Teacher education,

Workshop on Development of Performance Indicators Workshop, Vancouver

ITE Benchmarck Group (2000). Quality Assurance in Initial Teacher Education, The
Standard for Initial Teacher Education in Scotland-Benchmark Information

Menon M.B. (2003). Networking of Institutions in Nigeria for Professional Development

of Teachers by Open Distance Learning. Paper presented at the National Consultation
Meeting, Abuja.

Menon M. B. (2004). Professional Development by Open Distance Learning: Some

Curriculum related Issues and Experiences, Paper presented at the International
Conference on Curriculum related Issues for Quality of School Education (23-25
February 2004, New Delhi.

212
 Annexure - I

Report on NAAC-COL Roundtable on Innovations in

Teacher Education: International Practices for
Quality Assurance
(March 17-19th 2004: Bangalore, India)

Dr. Som Naidu*

Executive Summary
This extremely well organized meeting brought together several key individuals and
groups of people concerned with teacher education mainly from India, Africa, and
the Commonwealth of Learning. The two-day meeting that was held at Hotel Le
Meridian in Bangalore, India covered a wide range of issues under the following
three broad themes and subtopics:

1) Quality assurance practices (country experiences, approaches and

modalities of quality assurance, and teacher quality for the new millennium
– effective quality assurance practices);
2) Innovations and best practices (innovative experiences in teacher
preparation, sharing of best practices, and open and distance learning for
professional development of teachers); and
3) Information and communications technology for quality assurance.

Outcomes and Reflections

At the start of the meeting, as part of his paper on “Quality assurance in higher
education: The characteristics of the NAAC model”, the director of NAAC identified
three general key concerns that are currently confronting NAAC. These are as follows:

1) Managing the large volume of assessment and accreditation activity;

2) Making the assessment and accreditation process more professional and
comprehensive; and
3) Sustaining the quality of the assessment and accreditation process.

This report captures the thoughts of participants at the meeting on these concerns
and as they relate to teacher education practices.

1. Managing assessment and accreditation activity

1.1 The large volume of A & A activities requires both external and internal
review processes (e.g. self-assessment). External reviews carried out by
NAAC are time consuming and resource intensive activities. These can be
carried out periodically but self-audits can complement these periodic
external reviews.

Chief Rapporteur, Contact: s.naidu@unimelb.edu.au

213
 1.2 For reliable and valid self-auditing to take place, there will be a need to
make the assessment and accreditation processes more transparent so
that it can be self-administered. Clearly defined criteria and procedures
for self-auditing will need to be made available.

1.3 Moreover, it is essential that all regulatory bodies pool their resources,
and work in this regard to avoid duplication of effort.

1.4 Information and communications technology can be used in several ways

to ease automate, and expedite the process.

1.5 In order to ensure that the assessment and accreditation process is taken
seriously, it will be useful to tie funding and rewards (as well as penalties)
to quality performance. In this manner, the onus for judiciously and honestly
carrying out the review is placed on the individual organizations and its
officers and not on NAAC.

1.6 Educational organizations have been able to use funding very effectively
for rewarding excellence in research. There is something to be learned
from how research performance is monitored and rewarded by various
organizations, not only because of their successes and experience in that
regard, but mostly because teaching and research in any educational
organization ought to be seen as carrying equal importance and value.
Teaching and research are the core functions of most institutions of higher
learning.

2. Making the process more professional and comprehensive

2.1 To ensure external and internal validity and credibility, it is important to
ground the assessment and accreditation process within a “value
framework” which is suitable and appropriate for the national and
international context.

2.2 As far as teacher education is concerned, this value framework will

articulate what comprises “teacher education” and what are sound
practices in that regard, especially in relation to other professional
educational practices such as medicine, nursing, engineering, law, and
architecture.

2.3 A possible response is to develop and work with some taxonomy of

educational outcomes that transcends delivery modes, and is based on
basic principles that underlie good teaching and learning practices. Quality
assurance standards and criteria must be seen as detached from particular
modes of delivery (f2f, ODL, or e-learning). The thrills and frills of e-learning
must not detract us from the task of focusing on quality learning and
teaching experiences and on quality professional practices. This work would
comprise operationalising good teaching and learning practices, as well as
sound teacher and learner competencies.

214
 2.4 It would also lead to the defining and establishing of a comprehensive
process with explicit assessment criteria and clearly defined implementation
procedures. The peer-review process, which is a widely used practice in
educational settings for various kinds of review activities, needs careful
consideration. We are aware of the weaknesses of the peer-review process,
yet, it is one of the most reliable mechanisms we have at our disposal, and
it can be very useful if it is carefully constituted and applied. We must
ensure objectivity and transparency in the peer-review process, and how
the peer-review process can be improved with the inclusion of external
members. This is a common practice.

3. Sustaining the quality of the process

3.1 It would be useful to re-examine the existing assessment and accreditation
review cycle and its resource implications. Is it sustainable? Can it ensure
quality and maintain high standards with its existing resource allocation?

3.2 How can the process be improved? What happens between periodic
external assessments? How can self-audits, or external spot-audits be used
to maintain vigilance and high standards without overburdening NAAC? If
self-audits, and external spot-audits are going to be used more widely,
then there will be a need for a greater degree of transparency in the
assessment and accreditation process.

215
II - eruxennA

stnapicitraP fo tsiL
stnapicitraP lanoitanretnI
udiaN moS rosseforP .1
,gnihcaeT fo tnemtrapeD o/c
noisiviD noitamrofnI troppuS hcraeseR dna gninraeL
enruobleM fo ytisrevinU ehT
ailartsuA ,0103 airotciV
ua.ude.bleminu@udian.s : liam-e

niassoH arinoM rosseforP .2

naeD & rosseforP
noitacudE fo loohcS
ytisrevinU nepO hsedalgnaB
hsedalgnaB ,4071 rupizaG ,razaB draoB
; ten.algnab.uob@harinom : liam-e
moc.liamtoh@niassoharinom
2280089 2 088 : xaF

noneM nahoM rosseforP .3

gniniarT rehcaeT ,tsilaicepS noitacudE
gninraeL fo htlaewnommoC
006 etiuS ,yawdaorB tseW 5821
adanaC ,8 X3 H6V .C.B ,revuocnaV
0128 577 406 1: xaF
gro.loc@nonemm : liam-e

imukaysI uribaK.rD .4
yraterceS evitucexE
noitacudE fo segelloC rof noissimmoC lanoitaN
10A e n o Z l a r t s a d a C 9 2 8 t o l P
teertS edniedohS hplaR
airegiN ,ajubA ikraG ,4930 .B.M.P
moc.oohay@jamazdag ;moc.oohay@ukaysi_uribaK : liam-e

rihaT odadiG rosseforP .5

rotanidrooC lanoitaN
emmargorP noitacudE cisaB ytisrevinU
4 enoZ esuW ,esolC BBI,gnidliuB EBU
airegiN,9800325 9 432:xaF,ajubA ,6805 .B.M.P
moc.oohay@jamazdag : liam-e
moc.oohay@rihatdig ;moc.liamtoh@rihatdig ;moc.tennaks@rihat.odadig

712 217
 o b b i d o M . M d e m h A .rD .6
evitucexE feihC & rotceriD
e t u t i t s n I ’ s r e h c a eT l a n o i t a N
yaW sserpxE airaZ ,anudaK 5MK
airegiN ,anudaK
;moc.labolg-teni@dakitn : liam-e
moc.oohay@jamazdag

ekizE.OR .rM .7
ufumA-ahE ,noitacudE fo egelloC laredeF tsovorP
airegiN ,etatS ugunE
moc.oohay@jamazdag : liam-e

ujokaM .I .E .rD .8
arogatnoK ,noitacudE fo egelloC laredeF,tsovorP
airegiN ,etatS regiN
moc.oohay@jamazdag : liam-e

ramU namharrudbA .rD .9

tnemtrapeD gninnalP cimedacA ,rotceriD
e t u t i t s n I ’ s r e h c a eT l a n o i t a N
airegiN ,yaW sserpxE airaZ,anudaK 5MK
;moc.tennaks@ramuudbanudaK:liam-e
;moc.oohay@dakitn
moc.labolg-teni@dakitn
289913 26 432 : xaF

anedrawanuG ardnahC rosseforP .01

noitacudE fo ytlucaF&naeD
aknaL irS fo ytisrevinU nepO
aknaL irS ,adogeguN ,alawaN
49moc.liamtoh@anedrawanugg : liam-e
8586342 11 : xaF

agnessaM esoR .srM .11

n o i t a c u d E r e h c a eT ,r o t c e r i D
erutluC & noitacudE fo yrtsiniM
ainaznaT , maalaS se raD,1219 xoB
moc.oohay@cragnesam : liam-e
1723 112 22 552 : xaF

irullA anhsirK .rD .31

tnemnorivnE dna ytiruceS dooF ,tsilaicepS noitacudE
gninraeL fo htlaewnommoC ehT
,revuocnaV,006 etiuS ,yawdaorB tseW 5821
g r o . l o c @ i r u l l a K : l i a m - e ,adanaC , 8 X 3 H 6 V . C . B

218 812
 stnapicitraP naidnI
oaR ahduS .forP .1
rollecnahC-eciV
ytisrevinU nepO etatS akatanraK
aidnI ,akatanraK,erosyM
)R( 2082072 )O( 9415152 : 1280 : leT
2999975489 : boM
moc.oohay@oarahdusk : liam-e
ten.hte@uoskcv

noneM .B mayhS .forP .2

naeD & daeH
noitacudE fo etutitsnI lartneC
ytisrevinU ihleD ,graM arttahC ,33
)R( 59/4966472 – 110 :oN hP
1276850189 : boM
aidnI,700011 – ihleD

lawsnasnaS .N .D .forP .3
naeD dna rotceriD
noitacudE fo etutitsnI
erodnI ,awukrawnahB ayalaysivawhsiV aylihA iveD
710 254 – erodnI ,daoR yabmoB-argA
aidnI ,hsedarP ayhdaM
)R(1326442 )O( 5866642 – 1370 : leT
1326442 – 1370 : xaF
moc.liame@lawnasnasnd : liam-e

ihsoJ .N .A .forP .4
navahC oartnawshaY rosseforP
ytisrevinU nepO arthsarahaM
222 224 – kihsaN ,maD rupagnaG raeN ,irtognagnaynD
aidnI ,arthsarahaM
)tceriD( 2741322 – 3520 : leT
)O(9220322/8220322-3520
moc.liamtoh@idawkiagihsahs : liam-e

purawS itirmS .forP .5

noitacudE laicepS rof ertneC rotceriD
ytisrevinU s’nemoW TDNS
940 004 – iabmuM ,daoR uhuJ
aidnI ,arthsarahaM
1752560289 : boM )R( 36388682 – 220 : leT
ni.ten.lnsv.8mob@tdnsdeps : liam-e

912 219
 nayiM demmahoM .forP .6
gninraeL & ecnatsiD rof retneC rotceriD
animalsI ailiM aimaJ
aidnI ,420 011 – ihleD weN ,ynoloC esnefeD ,491 – D
4363130189 : boM )R( 42262642 )O( 08238962 : leT
69238962 – 110 : xaF
moc.liamffider@lodc_mm : liam-e

artorheM .N .R .forP .7
r o s s e f o rP
noitacudE fo etutitsnI hgablayaD
,ragaN merP ,981/3
aidnI ,hsedarP rattU ,argA - hgaB layaD
)R( 4680752 )O( 6910752 – 2650 : leT

imhskaL .S .K .T .forP .8
naeD dna rosseforP
noitacudE fo ytlucaF
,hteepaydiV ilahtsanaB
220403-htipaydiV ilahtsanaB .O .P
aidnI , n a h t s a j a R
)R( 824822 )O( 034822– 83410 : leT
824822 – 83410 : xaF
moc.oohay@imhskalskt : liam-e

haiamartakneV .P .forP .9
namriahC
eettimmoC lanoigeR nrehtuoS
xelpmoC TMH,gnidliuB DSC ,ETCN
130 065 -erolagnaB
aidnI ,akatanraK
)R(7793452 – 1280 : leT
moc.liamtoh@haiamarvp : liam-e

irdahseS .forP .01

ytisrevinU erosyM , rosseforP remroF
erosyM ,raganupmevuK ,kcolB D & C ,1931 #
aidnI , a k a t a n r a K
2162708449 : boM 2165452 – 1280 : leT
ni.tenrahcnas@hsesc :liam-e

aitahB .S .B .forP .11

)ORSI( noitasinagrO hcraeseR ecapS naidnI
eciffO tsoP kcehC ,supmaC CAS,tinU lanoitacudE tnempoleveD
aidnI ,350083 – ragandemhA,ratsiV idawabmA
02131962/45936762 – 970 : leT
41851962/65586762 – 970 :xaF

220 022
 erahK jaknaP .rM .21
reciffO emmargorP
)ACMEC(aisA rof retneC aideM lanoitacudE htlaewnommoC
860011 ihleD weN ,aerA lanoitutitsnI dabkalhguT,25
73216433-11-19 :enohP

lawaR itpurT .rD .31

tairaterceS EENAESAS
noitacudE tnemnorivnE rof ertneC
arkeT jetlahT
450083 - dabademhA
.aidnI
20085862-97-19 : hP
01085862-97-19 : xaF
moc.aidniecc@lawar.itpurt :liame

nahtanuhgaR aneeM .rD .41

rotanidrooC emmargorP
noitacudE tnemnorivnE rof ertneC
tnempoleveD rof noitadnuoF urheN
arkeT jetlahT
950083 - dabademhA
aidnI
90 ot 20085862-97-19 : hP
01085862-97-19 : xaF
gro.aidnieec@eec : liam-E

savinirS .G .rD .51

yraterceS ytupeD
noissimmoC stnarG ytisrevinU
eciffO lanoigeR nretsaE htroN
,5 – kcolB latneR ,deF esuoH ,roolF dr3
rupsiD ,daoR ahtsisaB – alotleB
massA 600 187 – itahawuG
)O(1277622 / 8184622-1630 -:leT
6507622 – 1630 -:xaF
moc.oohay@cgusavinirs : liam-e
stnapicitraP CAAN

122 221
 tseuG laicepS
elawkaT maR .forP
daoR .P.D .ffO ,ilevaN ,A4/261 #
,yteicoS gnisuoH dawrihsA anrupannA
700 114-enuP ,hdnuA
)R( 28948852 / )O( 418098552 – 020 :hP
5439562289 :eliboM
ten.hte@elawkatmar :liam-E

r ak e v a g i N n u r A . f o r P
namriahC
noissimmoC stnarG ytisrevinU
graM rafaZ hahS rudahaB
200 011 – ihleD weN
)R( 74874642-110 )O( 82693232-110 :hP
88263232 :xaF
moc.liamtoh@24nuran :liam-E

najaranahD .G .forP
reciffO evitucexE feihC dna tnediserP remroF
LOC
)aisayalaM( 016998406 :hP
m o c . x y m a e r t s @ n a h d g :liamE

ialliP narahkesajaR .N.V .forP

namriahC-eciV
noissimmoC stnarG ytisrevinU
graM rafaZ hahS rudahaB
200 011 – ihleD weN
8588 3232 – 110 :hP
8826 3232 – 110 :xaF
:liamE

udnidrahS .forP
namriahC
noitacudE rehcaeT rof licnuoC lanoitaN
muidatS roodnI ihdnaG aridnI
aidnI ,ihleD weN ,etatsE .P.I
07629332 - 110 : hP

222 222
 CAAN morf sreciffO
dasarP .S.V .forP
CAAN ,rotceriD
,daoR ramukjaR .rD ,4/2 #
010 065 – erolagnaB ,raganijajaR ,5701 .oN .O.P
54042132 ,)O( 6400 2132 – 080 :hP
)R( 9402 1432 / 9859 1432 – 080 :hP
7404 2132 – 080 :xaF
moc.liamtoh@99svdasarp :liamE

ialliP ahtaL .rD

CAAN ,resivdA
erolagnaB
moc.liamffider@740pl :liamE

alletS ynotnA .rD

CAAN ,resivdA
erolagnaB
moc.liamtoh@allets :liamE

radnusamayhS .S .M .rD
CAAN ,resivdA ytupeD
erolagnaB
moc.liamffider@udnib_mayhs :liamE

amaR .K ).srM( .rD

CAAN ,resivdA ytupeD
erolagnaB
moc.aidni-caan@amar :liamE
moc.liamtoh@illapadnokamar

rakukdaM .S.B .rM

,resivdA ytupeD
erolagnaB ,CAAN
moc.aidni-caan@uhdam :liamE

litaP htanagaJ .rD

,resivdA tnatsissA
erolagnaB ,CAAN
moc.oohay@caan_pj :liamE

jaridumnoP .S .B .rM
CAAN ,resivdA tnatsissA
erolagnaB
moc.aidni-caan@psb :liamE

edgeH hsenaG .rM

CAAN ,resivdA tnatsissA
erolagnaB
ni.ten.lnsv.rlb@caan :liamE
322 223
 navahgaR savinirS .rD
CAAN ,nairarbiL
erolagnaB
ni.oc.oohay@ooneesiarudam :liamE

esehgraV .A ammairaM .forP

CAAN ,tnatlutsnoC cimedacA roineS
erolagnaB
moc.liamffider@esehgrevam :liam-e

ialliP nahdusuhdaM .N.K .rD

CAAN ,tnatlusnoC cimedacA
erolagnaB
ni.oc.oohay@iallipmnk :liam-e

htanujnaM .R .B .rM
CAAN ,tnatlusnoC cimedacA
erolagnaB
ni.oc.liamffider@htanujnamrb :liam-e

haiagnaR adanaB .rM

CAAN ,tnatlusnoC cimedacA
erolagnaB
moc.aidni-caan@ahaignarb :liam-e

htanaruhdaM .L .rM
tnatlusnoC cimedacA
erolagnaB
ni.oc.oohay@l_htanaruhdam :liam-e

224 422
 Annexure - III

Round Table on Innovations in

Teacher Education: International
Practices of Quality Assurance
17-19, March 2004
Hotel Le Meridian, Bangalore, India

PROGRAMME SCHEDULE

Day 1: March 17, 2004

09:00 hrs – 10:00 hrs Registration

10:00 hrs – 11:15 hrs Inaugural Session

Welcome : Prof. V. S. Prasad

Director, NAAC (05’)

Presidential Address : Prof. Ram Takwale

Chairman – EC, NAAC (10’)

Inaugural Address : Prof. Arun Nigavekar

Chairman, UGC (30’)

Keynote Address : Prof. G. Dhanarajan

President and
Chief Executive Officer, COL (20’)

Vote of thanks : Dr. Latha Pillai

Adviser, NAAC (5’)

11:15 hrs – 11: 45 hrs Tea

Theme I: Quality Assurance Practices

Session 1: 11:45 hrs – 13:15 hrs
Quality Assurance Practices: Country Experiences

Chairperson : Prof. Mohan Menon

Rapporteur : Dr. G. Srinivas

Presentations:
Quality Assurance in Indian Higher Education:
The Characteristics of the NAAC Model
- Prof. V. S. Prasad, India (15’)

225
Quality Assurance Practices in Nigerian Teacher Education
- Dr. E. I. Makoju, Nigeria (15’)

Role and functions of NCTE in the Context of Quality Assurance in

Teacher Education in India
- Prof. P. Venkatramaiah, India (15’)

Discussion: (30’)

Chairpersons Remarks :(07’)

Vote of Thanks by Rapporteur: (03’)

13:15 hrs – 14:00 hrs Lunch

Session 2: 14:00 hrs – 15:30 hrs

Approaches and Modalities of Quality Assurance

Chairperson: Prof. Sudha Rao

Rapporteur: Dr. Antony Stella

Presentations:
Quality Assurance for the Universal Basic Education Programme
- Prof. Gidado Tahir, Nigeria (15’)

Futuristic Challenges to Quality Assurance in Teacher Education:

Need for Comprehensive Strategy.
- Prof. Shyam Menon (15’)

Assessment and Accreditation of Teacher Education Institutions:

The Indian Experience
- Dr. K. Rama, India (15’)

Discussion: (30’)

Chairpersons Remarks :(07’)

Vote of Thanks by Rapporteur: (03’)

15:30 hrs – 16: 00 hrs Tea

Session 3: 16:00 hrs – 17:30 hrs

Teacher Quality for the New Millennium-
Effective Quality Assurance Practices

Chairperson: Prof. R. N. Mehrotra

Rapporteur: Mr. L. Madhuranath

226
Presentations:
Learning Design as an Indicator of Quality in Teacher Education
- Prof. Som Naidu, Australia (15’)

Quality Assurance Initiatives in Elementary Teacher Education in India

- Prof. C. Seshadri, India (15’)

Fostering inclusion through Teacher Education:

Innovative Strategies and Practices
- Prof. Smriti Swarup, India (15’)

Discussion: (30’)

Chairpersons Remarks: (07’)

Vote of Thanks by Rapporteur: (03’)

Day 2: March 18, 2004

Theme II: Innovations and Best Practices

Session 4: 9:00 hrs – 10:30 hrs

Innovative Experiences in Teacher Preparation

Chairperson: Dr. Kabiru Isyaku

Rapporteur: Mr. B. R. Manjunath
Presentations:
Innovations and Best Practices: Applications in Mathematics Education in Nigeria
- Mr. R. O. Ezike, Nigeria (15’)

The Anveshna Experience: Teacher Education with a difference

- Prof. T. K. S. Lakshmi, India (15’)

Teacher Education through Distance Education: Innovations and

Best Practices in YCMOU
- Prof. A. N. Joshi, India (15’)

Discussion: (30’)

Chairpersons Remarks: (07’)

Vote of Thanks by Rapporteur: (03’)

10:30 hrs – 11:00 hrs Tea

227
Session 5: 11:00 hrs – 12:30 hrs
Sharing of Best Practices

Chairperson: Prof. Chandra Gunawardena

Rapporteur: Dr. M. S. Shyamasundar

Presentations:
Teacher Education in Tanzania Innovations and Best Practices
- Mrs. Rose Massenga, Tanzania (15’)

Innovations and Best Practices

- Prof. Mohmmed Miyan, India (15’)

Education of Teacher Educators

- Prof. R. N. Mehrotra, India (15’)
Discussion: (30’)

Chairpersons Remarks: (07’)

Vote of Thanks by Rapporteur: (03’)

12:30 hrs – 13:30 hrs Lunch

Session 6: 13:30 hrs – 15:00 hrs

Open and Distance Learning for Professional Development of Teachers

Chairperson: Prof. Mariamma A. Varghese

Rapporteur: Mr. Banada Rangaiah

Presentations:
Teacher Education by the Distance Learning System in Nigeria :
Issues of Quality Assurance
- Dr. Kabiru Isyaku, Nigeria (15’)

Quality Assurance Practices in Teacher Education Programmes

in the Open University of Srilanka
-Prof. Chandra Gunawardena, Srilanka (15’)

A Synthetic approach to Quality Assurance in Open and Distance Learning:

The Case of the Pivotal Teacher Training Programme in Nigeria
-Dr. Ahmed M. Modibbo, Nigeria (15’)

Discussion: (30’)

Chairpersons Remarks: (07’)

Vote of Thanks by Rapporteur: (03’)
15:00 hrs – 15:30 hrs Tea

228
Theme III: ICT for Quality Assurance

Session 7: 15:30 hrs – 17:00 hrs

ICT for Quality Assurance

Chairperson: Mrs. Rose Massenga

Rapporteur: Mr. B. S. Ponmudiraj

Presentations:
Digitalising Assessment and Accreditation Procedures:
An Approach for the Indian Model
- Prof. Ram Takwale, India (15’)

Incorporating ICT in to Teacher Education Curriculum of Bangaldesh

- Prof. Monira Hossain, Bangladesh (15’)

Role of Information and Communication for

Quality Assurance of Teacher’s Training
- Prof. D. N. Sansanwal, India (15’)
- Prof. B. S. Bhatia, India (15’)

Discussion: (30’)

Chairpersons Remarks: (07’)

Vote of Thanks by Rapporteur: (03’)

Day 3: March 19, 2004

Theme IV: Networking for Quality Assurance

Session 8: 9:00 hrs – 10:30 hrs

Networking for Quality Assurance: Follow-up Action

Chair Person: Prof. V. S. Prasad

Rapporteur: Dr. G. Srinivas

Initiation of Discussion
-Prof. Mohan Menon (20’)
Discussion: (60’)

Chairpersons Remarks: (07’)

Vote of Thanks by Rapporteur: (03’)

10:30 hrs – 11:00 hrs Tea

229
11:30 hrs – 12:45 hrs Valedictory Session

Welcome : Prof. V. S. Prasad

Director, NAAC (10’)

Presidential address : Prof. Shardindu

Chairperson, NCTE (15’)

Valedictory Address : Prof. V. N. Rajasekharan Pillai

Vice-Chairman, UGC (20’)

Concluding Remarks : Prof. Mohan Menon

Education Specialist,
Teacher Training, COL (15’)

Chief Rapporteur Remarks : Prof. Som Naidu (10’)

Vote of Thanks : Dr. K. Rama

Deputy Adviser, NAAC (5’)

230
 Annexure - IV
Abbreviations

AA : Assessment and Accreditation

ABU : Ahmadu Bello University (Nigeria)
ADB : Asian Development Bank
ADEA : Association for the Development of Education in Africa
AICTE : All India Council for Technical Education (India)
ALU : Arithmetic Logic Unit
ASC : Academic Staff College
ATEs : Anweshana Teacher Educators
AVV : African Virtual University
B.Ed. : Bachelor of Education
BIDE : Bangladesh Institute of Distance Education
BOU : Bangladesh Open University
BRC : Block and Cluster Resource Centres
CAI : Computer Assisted Instruction/ Computer Aided Instruction
CCM : Content Cum Methodology
CIE : Central Institute of Education
COL : Commonwealth of Learning
CPD : Continuous Professional Development
CVCD : Committee of Vice – Chancellors and Directors
DA : Dance Academy
DE : Distance Education
DEC : Distance Education Council (India)
DIET : District Institute of Education and Training
DLS : Distance Learning System
DPET : District Primary Education Programme
e–AA : Electronic Assessment and Accreditation
EACTED : East African Consortium for Teacher Education Development
ECCE : Early Childhood Care and Education
Ed.CIL : Education Consultants India Limited
ESDP : Education Sector Development Program
ESR : Education for Self Reliance
ETP : Education and Training Policy
FQL : Fundamental Quality Levels
GATS : General Agreement on Trade in Services
GCE : General Certificate in Education
GER : Gross Enrollment Rate
GoI : Government of India
Govt. : Government
HEIs : Higher Education Institutions
IASE : Institute of Advanced Studies in Education
IBE : International Bureau of Education
ICT : Information and Communication Technology
IER : Institute of Education and Research (Bangladesh)
IGNOU : Indira Gandhi National Open University (India)

231
IQAC : Internal Quality Assurance Cell (NAAC)
IRA : International Reading Association
ISI : Indian Standards Institute
ISRO : Indian Space Research Organisation
IT : Information Technology
LMS : Learning Management System
LSC : Learning Science Consultants
M.Ed. : Master of Education
ME : Monitoring and Evaluation
MHRD : Ministry of Human Resource Development (India)
MIS : Management Information Systems
MKCL : Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (India)
MLL : Minimum Learning Levels
MOEC : Ministry of Education and Culture (Tanzania)
MOU : Memorandum of Understanding
MTUU : UNICEF – UNESCO and Tanzania Government Joint Reform Programme
for Primary Education.
NAAC : National Assessment and Accreditation Council (India)
NBA : National Board of Accreditation of the AICTE, (India)
NCCE : National Commission for Colleges of Education (Nigeria)
NCERT : National Council of Educational Research and Training (India)
NCME : National Commission for Mass Education
NCTE : National Council for Teacher Education (India)
NEC : National Education Commission (Sri Lanka)
NECO : National Examination Council (Nigeria)
NECTA : National Examination Council of Tanzania
NIE : National Institute of Education (Sri Lanka)
NIEPA : National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration
NOUN : National Open University of Nigeria
NPE : National Policy in Education
NTI : National Teachers Institute (Nigeria)
ODL : Open and Distance Learning
OUSL : Open University of Sri Lanka
OUT : Open University of Tanzania
PEDP : Primary Education Development Plan
POA : Programme of Action
PTTP : Pivotal Teacher Training Programme
QA : Quality Assurance
QAA : Quality Assurance and Accreditation
QAF : Quality Assurance Framework
QC : Quality Control
QIs : Quality Indicators
RAN : Reading Association of Nigeria
RCC : Rapid Results College
RCE : Regional College of Education
RIE : Regional Institute of Education
SA : South Africa

232
SACTED : South African Consortium for Teacher Education
SAR : Self Appraisal Report
SCC : Story Centered Curriculum
SCERT : State Council of Educational Research and Training (India)
SDL : Self Directed Learning
SEDP : Secondary Education Development Plan
SIEs : State Institutes of Education
SSA : Sub – Saharan Africa
SSR : Self Study Report
STs : Student Teachers
SUPW : Socially Useful Productive Work
TEPs : Teacher Education Programmes
TIE : Tanzania Institute of Education
ToTs : Training of Trainers
TQI : Teaching Quality Improvement
TQM : Total Quality Management
TRC : The Teachers Registration Council
TRCs : Teacher Resource Centres
TSC : Teachers Service Commission (Tanzania)
TTI’s : Teacher Training Institutes
TTs : Teacher Trainees
UBE : Universal Basic Education
UEE : Universalisation of Elementary Education
UGC : University Grants Commission
UNESCO : United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organisation
VDU : Visual Display Unit
WTO : World Trade Organisation
YCMOU : Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (India)

233