New Pre-Service Teacher Education Program For Teacher Professionalization In Pakistan:Context,Structure And Challenges

In Pakistan issues of quality and its assurance in teacher education was identified and recognized by national and international agencies in the era of2000. Moreover the previous program has been phased out and new teacher policy framework is designed., So there have been two major steps proposed and initiated specifically in teacher education2009within last five years with vast funding of US AID. One is "Strengthening Teacher Education in Pakistan"(STEP) and the other "Pre-Service Teacher Education in Pakistan"(Pre-Step) which is now renamed as USAID Teacher Education Project (USAID-TEP). This step of USAID not only provided financial support to these two programs but also brought major changes in teacher education policies and practices. Together with teacher education institutions are developed curriculum for newly launched two-year and four-five year teacher education programs with the funding of USAID and support of institutions of teacher education in the USA. Besides, the "National Professional Standards for Teachers in Pakistan" and Accreditation Council for Teacher Education have already been developed (USAID,2009).Keeping in view there is need to highlight the strengths and weakness of a new TE program as compared to previous ones, specially what are the current obstacles and issues in context of quality and implementation faced by TEI and what are the ways to solve the issues. This study was undertaken to critically examine the context, structure and challenges of teacher education in Pakistan. To examine the context this study was to review past attempts in context of education polices, to investigate the previous status and assess government effort and reform in teacher education. Besides it reviews the current policies and practices for how and why the new TE program came in to being. Secondly it highlights the silent feature of new program structure to understand the strengths and value as compared to previous ones, investigate what are issues and challenges faced by the head of institutions and also identify external and internal factors and forces which affect the TE of Pakistan. The research objectives of the study is to answer the research question for solution of present research problem. Data which is relevant with teacher education program in Pakistan is used more specifically ministry documents such as Government educational policies, new pre-service teacher education program reports, UNESCO and USAID country reports and research studies.This study is systematic descriptive review in nature and for this study the data were analyzed using a document analysis method based on thematic qualitative approach. A semi-structured interview was found necessary in order to identify the challenges and problems of heads of teacher education institutions (universities teacher education department) in Islamabad with reference to implication of new pre-service teacher education. The analysis of previous policies documents shows that in Pakistan after independence, several education commitments were made in order to bring about qualitative and quantitative improvements in the education sector. These commitments were presented in terms of various number of education policies along with five-year plans, ten-year perspective plans and Education Sector Reforms (ESRs). But unluckily all these efforts and commitments were haphazard and awkward due to troubled political conditions of the country. And every time the main reasons are due to the rise and fall of different governments and political changes and unpractical major changes recommended from the government committees in the education system.The results of interview were analyzed in systematic manner. The interview respondent’s views revealed that teacher education programs are facing a lot of challenges.Due to these challenges quality of TE suffers and pre-service new teacher education programs are loosing its worth. For instance no criteria (Admission Standards), the scheme of studies and content of teacher education has no connection with context of classroom and school environment and student needs. There is lack of planning and supervision for teaching practice and there is no serious attitude of school heads towards practicum of STs, infrastructure, ICT setup and research and innovations in the area of teacher education. Afterwards there are political interference and social problems. The study concludes that there is a dire need of commitment and implementation of policy for quality education and training for teachers in Pakistan. It is time for the government and institutions to think seriously about policy and vision for future education and address root problems for the sake of quality teachers and quality education for bright beautiful future of Pakistan. Finally based on the findings and conclusions recommendations with value-added model for further improvement and further study have also been put forward.