Page 10 - A comprehensive policy

A Comprehensive Training Policy for Technical Teachers

to empower themselves with sophisticated technology. Hence, simultaneous
enrichment with human values has become all the more important.

Training in human values through an appropriate process of self-exploration
happens to be, by far, the most important component of the training of teachers.
They must also be able to visualize the inter relationship and interaction between
science, technology, environment, social and ethical values. During the past two
decades, some innovative experiments have been conducted towards integrating
human values in technical education in some professional institutions such as IIT
Delhi, IIIT Hyderabad, IIT Kanpur, IIT BHU etc. and technical universities such as
UPTU, PTU and others. These also include the development of effective teacher
orientation programs and resource material which can be quite useful in providing
this rather difficult constituent of teacher training. Needless to mention that the
real foundation of sustainable development lies in the appropriate integration of
science, technology and human values.

Teachers with sound value-orientation will also be effective mentors and counselors
for younger students, help create a value-centric environment in institutions and
mould the thinking of the youngsters enabling a holistic development of their
personality. Active academics and IQ alone cannot help to build a nation of good
citizens unless it is blended with due and active preparation of students in EQ and SQ.

1.1.2 CONTINUOUS TEACHING LEARNING

It may be pointed out that a teacher also has to learn the knack of continuous
learning, updating and life-long learning. Also at successive stages of the teaching
career, training inputs about curriculum development, infrastructure development,
institutional development, discipline and other important aspects of educational
administration and policy formulation etc. will also be needed.

The need and rationale explained above require the development of a
“Comprehensive Training Policy” for inductee teachers and teachers working at
different stages of their careers as well as meeting different needs. Considering the
training needs and also the size of the problem in our country, the policy has to be
comprehensive so as to be implementable on a large scale.

2.0 SOME PREVIOUS INITIATIVES

Although the need for a mandatory training program for technical teachers has
unfortunately not been appreciated in full seriousness in the past, there have been
some sporadic initiatives launched with the intention of improving the quality of
technical teachers. Among these, perhaps the more effective was in the domain of
Quality Improvement Programs (QIP). The main focus of QIPs has been to facilitate
the enhancement of quality of in-service teachers. In this respect, they have
been helpful and therefore, need to be continued. However, the effort towards
improving the teaching skills, ICT capabilities and more importantly the values and
attitudes have been rather missing and need to be appropriately catered to. In the
early stages of technical education, i.e. in 1950s-60s, a three-year Technical Teaching

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