Reasons of Failed Teacher Training in Nepal

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The formal history of Teacher Training in Nepal starts from basic teacher training in1948 (DOE: 2064, p.67), however, the significant and formal departure of teacher training begins after the democratic state governance in 2007; especially after the establishment of the College of Education in 1956 (ibid) as per the recommendation of the Education Commission of 2011.

The Education Commission of 2011, informally known as the Wood Commission, made some influential recommendations for Nepal's education system. The idea of providing teacher training in an organized way in connection with incentives, carriers, and changing local context through an institution was one of those recommendations. Because of this idea, the well-known College of Education was established in 1956 in Nepal. This college was initially started with the help of American scholars and at the same time, some Nepalese youth were sent to the university of Oregon, USA for their higher degree in education (teacher training). After some time, The College of Education was gradually led by those returnee Nepalese graduates from an American university and it was successfully sustained for some years. This institution produced a number of graduates during the time, at the same time; the institution (college of education) was gradually mainstreamed in Tribhuvan University which was established in 2016. After some years, the Department of education of Tribhuvan University and affiliated education campuses served as the teacher training institutions. Some many years later established universities began to serve teacher training in the academic form through their departments. This is known as the pre-service teacher training and qualification.

Nepal's In-service teacher training has different pictures. After implementing the National Education System of 2028, training was made compulsory for a permanent teacher in public schools and this plan introduced the provision of two types of qualifications both academic as well as professional as compulsory for entry into the teaching profession (NCED: 2066, p.3).

Nepal has been practicing in-service teacher training through different projects, forms, and frameworks for years. Seti Project, Primary Education Project, Basic and Primary Education Project, Radio Education Teacher Training, 10 months training, 150-330 hours training, and Science Education Project were some of the notable teacher training projects of the past. Under the EFA National education framework and training policy 2005; almost all primary school teachers were provided the 10 months long training. And under the secondary teacher support program a national campaign for training was started with the establishment of the Extensive Training Network –ETN) (NCED: 2066, p. 3). History of such different approaches to short-term teacher training concludes that Nepal has tried many short-term approaches in teacher training applying different forms. It has also applied short as well as long-term professional training. After establishing the National Center for Education Development (NCED) in 2050, the training part of the education system was managed.

As the training project, Nepal is applying Continuous Professional Development (CPD) now. This approach of CPD includes 30 days of Teachers' Professional Development in different three phases. Another short-term training like customized training and teacher Professional Support is also practiced. Theoretically, Nepal's teacher training framework has included a wider range of content, pedagogies, children's or learning psychology, ideas on the learning environment and classroom management, communication and collaboration, continuous learning and professional development, legal bases and professional development, and information, and communication technology. Frameworks include content about school leadership, learning sharing, and professional support. Over frameworks covers the wider range of content-pedagogical knowledge, classroom management, observation and feedback, and virtual professional development aspects as well. The Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology has plans for teachers' professional support, the ministry has the policy to make the CPD of teachers school-based, teacher-led, collaborative dynamic, and flexible, establishing teacher support centers at local levels, subject-wise teacher committees, mobilizing experienced and competent teachers. The Ministry has further plans for basic, academic, refresher training, workshop and seminars, applying the system of research, action research, and case study, teacher's self-assessment, classroom-based support, technology-based support system, interactive digital education materials, classroom management and use of technology, communication with parents and teachers. In addition to the government efforts, many civil society organizations and international organizations including British Council are also supporting Nepal's teacher training.

Looking at the training framework, it seems better, millions of Dollars have been already invested but the research on the impact of teacher training has been found very non-significant (Baral: 2079:pp.260-2061). A common conclusion is that training has not been successful in transforming it into classrooms. The reasons for such gaps between the efforts of government and development partners on teachers' training and the deteriorating learning achievement of school children have been discussed below:

Scarcity of qualified and motivated candidates

The lack of qualified and motivated candidates in the selection process of the teaching profession is the main reason behind the inefficient teacher training in Nepal. General trends of choosing the education stream by the lowest scorers at the end of school level and the supportive policy provision of state policy in this line too is the main reason for not having the best potential university candidates in the selection process of the Teacher Service Commission of Nepal. TSC is getting fewer numbers of even just pass marks scorers than the demanded number of candidates, which is one of the examples of a lack of qualified teachers in Nepal.

The issue is not only of qualification, the need for a motivated and dedicated candidate in the teaching profession is another big issue. Once candidates get into the profession permanently, a trend has been observed not to be updated in the areas of their subject matter. This trend makes the teacher gradually leads to be disqualified as per the changing context of ideas and subject matters in contemporary academia.

Education departments of universities are not being effective in producing qualified and motivated teaching professionals. At the same time, no mechanism is in place to attract qualified candidates from the universities. The teaching profession has not been the profession of attraction. This is the fundamental reason behind the low number of entry of potential candidates for the profession and because of the lack of such qualified and motivated teachers; teacher training in Nepal is always been ineffective. This is the basis for the qualified and motivated candidate and because of the lack of qualified and motivated candidates teacher training will always fail to transform the training into learning achievement.

According to the report of teacher quotas redistribution suggestion taskforce 2075, 504 secondary schools have no even single teacher quota, 714 secondary schools have only one quota of subject teacher, and 2021 secondary schools have only two subject teacher quotas. 1481 primary schools (1-5 grades) and basic schools (grades 6-8) have not even a single permanent teacher quota (as mentioned in HLEC:2075). At the secondary level only, there is a shortage of 24835 secondary teachers in the country (Simon Borg and Vertex Consult: 2023). Because of this situation of teacher shortage of minimum subject teachers, training and the quality of it is the agenda of very far distance.

Lack of institution and resources

Education Training Centers (ETC) are responsible state units to provide teacher training but the number of ETCs has been reduced from 29 to 7 only now. Capacities of these limited 7 ETCs have been negatively hampered because of the limited budget and human resources. Poor quality, low relevancy of training, and lack of school-based professional support; mentoring, and supervision are the additional issues. Referring to the education budget in the national budget, only 10.94 percent of the national budget has been allocated to education this financial year (2022/23). This shows the resource constraints in the entire education sector not only of ETCs.

The new governance structures of Nepal have a clear structure and the responsibilities of CPD training. MOST-CEHRD, ETC, EDCU, and the local education units have specific roles and responsibilities for teacher training. However, after the collapse of a tentative 1000 resource center in the past, there is a lack of established local mechanisms for teacher training and experience sharing between teachers.

Low level of professionalism in the teaching

Teacher unionism and the culture of connectionism are other challenges to effective teacher training. Ultimately, almost all teachers believe in other than qualification, contribution, and merits. As a result of these entire contexts, teacher training in Nepal could not be professional and successful as per the efforts and expectations.

Fewer incentives and inspiration

After receiving the TPD and other short-term training and certificates received, the target of teachers and training providers ended. Teachers would not have the will to apply the learned knowledge and skills of training to the teaching-learning engagement in the classroom. To apply the training, there is a need for extra effort from the teachers. Action research, applying the new pedagogical approaches automatically demands incentives and awards through a classroom or learning achievement-based proper questioning, observation, and feedback mechanism but these are not in practice yet in Nepal.

The blanket approach to Training

The current teacher training approach is more classroom lecture-based. All the participating teachers in TPD get some theoretical knowledge in the same way equally but the individual differences of teachers, students, and the schools have very high importance that makes the training effective. As the training, graduates try to apply the common idea of training in the big classroom with diversities and the training does not get results and all the investment goes wasted.

Other multiple reasons

There are many reasons for the unsuccessful teacher training in Nepal. Lack of sharing, feedback giving and the peer observation culture are other factors of weak teacher training. Training has been understood as just a formality. A gap between the expectation and the TPD training is another big issue. Training curricula and the school curricula, classroom size, and diversities, workload of teachers are different from each other. Because of this reason, training is not transforming into the classroom. Teachers hardly finish the loaded textbook so there is less chance for teachers to apply ideas of training in the classroom.

Lack of post-training monitoring mechanism and educational materials, opaque selection process, only training center-based Training, the difference between the training and actual teacher-student ratio, and more school holidays are also the other important reasons for ineffective teacher training in Nepal.

The difference between training and practice of paper-based learning achievement tests repeatedly promotes lecture-based dominance in the classroom. An unclear legislative framework between the three layers of government is another issue. Only partial devolution of responsibility to local government, lack of well-defined roles, and low prioritizing of education are the other reasons for efficient teacher training in Nepal.

Lack of a long-term plan for teacher training, discontinuation of legacy and experiences of the previous teacher training practices, and insignificant coordination between the universities and Education Ministry and its training providers are the other barriers to low proficiency in teacher training. Similarly, the involvement of experts and bureaucrats to design the training curricula rather than the teachers, lack of connecting training with career development and incentives, the weak financial and managerial status of training providers, lecture-based theoretical training curriculum, lack of revision on curriculum as the changing time, context and need are the other core reasons of fail teacher training in Nepal.

Conclusion

Therefore based on the discussion above, it concludes that if Nepal wants to improve teacher training, it should, first of all, revise the policy issues on key areas of teacher preparation courses. Quality control of universities' teacher preparation academic degrees should be strictly followed. Salary and working conditions of teachers should be revised. Teacher recruitment policy should attract top university graduates into the teaching profession. Monitoring and feedback mechanisms and accountability culture should be established especially in the three layers of government.

Federal education act is needed to clarify many issues of teacher training at a federal, provincial, and local level. A coordinating mechanism should be established between ETC and Local government. The number of ETC should increase up to at least the district and province level and the local government should lead them through a well-working system and mechanism. Training should be open to all types of teachers, including private. Post-training mechanisms and feedback should be managed. Training curricula should be revised as per the changing context of the Nepalese classroom. Headteachers and local government units should be empowered to monitor, feedback, and follow up in the post-training context. Mentors of teacher training should be from the teaching profession.

Teacher training needs a long-term policy. Training policy and curricula should adopt the learning the good experience of the past, should connect the training to carrier and incentives, 10 percent of university graduates should attract to the teaching profession as recommended by HLEC 2075, and one-year university course should be developed after graduation instead of 4 years Bachelor and two years masters in Education. Similarly, pre-service training and orientation are needed after entry into the teaching profession. The training course should be revised on a regular basis as the changes in the school curriculum and finally, forms of training should be many as per the changing context of information technology.

Ultimately, it is upon the teachers. How we select the teachers, and how teacher preparation universities and institutions produce the graduates for the teaching profession depends on the future of teacher training and learning outcomes in Nepal's education system in the days to come.

प्रकाशित मिति: मंगलबार, चैत ७, २०७९ १४:५०