Since the enactment of the Right to Education Act (2009), which aims to ensure universal access to education, the focus has shifted from access to the quality of education provided. Central to this is the professional development of teachers, who play a key role in implementing the vision of national policies.
India is currently grappling with a learning crisis. National and international assessments, including the National Achievement Survey (NAS) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), indicate low student performance levels, particularly in foundational literacy and numeracy skills. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) highlights that many children lack basic reading and arithmetic skills even after several years of schooling. For example, the proportion of class 3 students who can read at a class 2 level decreased from 27.3 percent in 2018 to 20.5 percent in 2022. Similarly, the percentage of class 5 students able to perform division dropped from 28.2 percent in 2018 to 25.6 percent in 2022.
Teachers have a significant impact on learning outcomes. While the pre-service education and teacher credential system needs a complete overhaul and is an important pillar of teacher quality, in this article we examine the current issues plaguing in-service teacher development and suggest a different approach to bring national practice on par with global best practices.
In-service teacher development in India
Samagra Shiksha—an overarching programme for the school education sector from preschool to class 12—spends upwards of INR 500 crore annually on training lakhs of teachers, with added funding components from states. At the state level, training typically involves the creation of academic training content by the State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT), and a cascaded approach from state-level master trainers to district-level resource persons, who ultimately train teachers at the block or cluster level. This annual exercise is based on subject-specific programmes approved in Samagra Shiksha’s annual work plan and budget. However, this approach results in cascade loss—at each step, there is a loss of information, quality, and effectiveness. Recently, the Centre and different states have adopted online training methods to try and overcome some of these problems.
Gaps in the existing professional development model
While student learning has evolved with the advent of new technologies, the methods for teacher professional development have remained largely traditional. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 advocates a shift towards a continuous development approach, recognising that professional development should be an ongoing process rather than a series of discrete events. The NEP thus recommends that every teacher should undergo 50 hours of continuous professional development every year. While this recommendation is necessary to empower and upskill teachers in order to realise the vision of the NEP, it fails to take into account multiple systemic realities and past failures of in-service teacher training.
Although well intentioned, this recommendation is unlikely to work due to the following reasons:
1. The teacher deficiency assumption
Conceptually, the existing framework operates under a ‘teacher deficiency’ assumption, treating teachers as vessels to be filled with knowledge and ‘trained’ on skills, thus undermining their professional agency. It is also based on a one-size-fits-all model that does not see teachers as professionals with a range of experience and expertise—whether you’re a teacher in the early stages of your career or close to retirement, you are expected to participate in the same training programme.
2. Lack of participant engagement
Teachers’ low motivation to participate in these programmes, which are often perceived as irrelevant or unengaging, has been a pervasive issue. Leadership For Equity’s surveys and focus group discussions with more than 1 lakh teachers across four states and 36 districts in India point to a recurring theme of training fatigue among teachers. The teachers largely felt that there are too many mandatory training programmes and each one has different requirements. They claim that these programmes interfere with the teaching schedule in schools. Anecdotal findings also suggest that there are no selection criteria at the field level, and the same teachers end up being sent for these mandatory programmes year after year. Compounding these challenges is the absence of empirical evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of the existing programmes in improving teaching practices, with no such requirement to secure future budget approvals.
3. Inadequate monitoring and evaluation
NISHTHA, an Indian government initiative introduced to enhance the skills of teachers and school principals, is a promising step forward. However, it faces several challenges. One fundamental issue is that there is no way to track whether the course is being completed by the teacher or by someone else on their behalf in a bid to meet government-mandated completion numbers. Other issues include insufficient rigour in completion and certification, as well as the inability to effectively assess whether the teacher actually understood the course they completed. Additionally, there is a notable absence of tracking mechanisms to monitor the number of teachers trained each academic year and the competencies mastered by them, let alone the extent of implementation of these learnings in their classrooms.
All of this boils down to the fact that training is centrally mandated and looked at as an activity to be completed for compliance and fund utilisation, rather than as one focused on teachers’ learning and development towards improving education quality.
What’s working in high-achieving nations?
The practices followed in high-achieving nations highlight the needs-based nature of teacher professional development. High-achieving nations are those that have historically scored well on OECD’s PISA test, which is widely regarded as the only internationally comparable assessment on student achievement. These nations are distinguished by their emphasis on student outcomes and strengthened teacher practices, prioritisation of teacher autonomy and rigorous training, incentivisation of growth, and fostering of respect for educators as skilled professionals.
In high-achieving nations, teachers are treated as professionals and are given the autonomy to choose the path for their professional development. In Singapore, for example, the government pays for the professional development of teachers and allows them to take up courses towards master’s degrees in different streams—curriculum specialisation, mentorship, or school management (as principals).
In South Korea, teachers must complete 90 hours of professional development courses available in different formats every three years. Additionally, after three years of teaching, they can enrol in a government-approved, five-week (180-hour) professional development programme to earn an advanced certificate. This certification not only boosts their salary but also makes them eligible for promotion. This reward-based teacher professional development system provides clear incentives for growth and learning.
In Australia, the system for teachers’ continuous professional development requires educators at all career stages to engage in further studies so that the needs of a diverse student population can be addressed. Professional learning is measured through both award and non-award courses (that is, courses with and without degrees), aligned with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. These courses, endorsed by state-based regulatory authorities, include workshops, seminars, conferences, and programmes that provide certificates of participation or attendance. In many states and territories, teachers must complete a specified number of professional learning hours to maintain their registration.
Reconceptualising teacher development in India
While training led by experts from institutes of excellence and based on specific needs is desirable, the scale—reaching more than 10 lakh teachers—renders it less feasible in India. Designing a progression around teachers’ self-directed professional development activities might be more sustainable and also in line with the NEP 2020, which emphasises that teachers should participate in professional development opportunities ‘motivated by their interests’. While linking teacher development to a career progression structure similar to other countries would be preferable, we must continue to look at ways to rejig the current teacher development structures, irrespective of it. Creating a central or state-level credit system for teacher professional development could be a pathway worth exploring in this regard.
1. Introducing a credits-based system, led by a strengthened SCERT and NCERT
The creation of such a system should begin with a policy-level definition of credits, how they can be earned, and what they are worth to the teachers. This will ensure that the knowledge to be gained and the incentive to work towards gaining that knowledge is clear. Ideally, a strengthened SCERT at the state level and NCERT at the national level can be compiled in consultation with national and international experts. These credits, and eventually all continuing professional development (CPD) initiatives, can be aligned to attain the National Professional Standards for Teachers and internalise pedagogical methods recommended by the National Curriculum Framework (2023).
2. Enabling a robust digital system and transferability of credits
A key feature of this system would be digital teacher portfolios that track and store earned credits and record teachers’ participation in teacher professional development initiatives, functioning similarly to and preferably synced with the Academic Bank of Credits (ABC). ABC is a virtual/digital storehouse that contains information on the credits earned by individual students throughout their learning journey. It enables students to open their accounts and gives multiple options for entering and leaving colleges or universities. DIKSHA—the national digital platform for teacher education—with a DigiLocker-like add-on, which would allow it to store, share, and verify digital documents, can evolve into this platform to serve as a one-stop destination for all things to do with teacher development. Digital Promise in the US has already taken steps in this regard.
Having a robust digital infrastructure for storing and authenticating credits is a major step in beginning to recognise teachers as professionals. Awarding digital badges, based on the type of achievement, could be another means of acknowledging teachers’ professional journey and ensuring that it is recorded. This needs to be driven and endorsed by education authorities, reflecting the significance of formal qualifications in academic and professional life in India.
3. Linking credits to teacher rewards and recognition
To further incentivise participation, these credits can be linked to tangible rewards or recognition such as promotions (if applicable) and salary increments aligned with pay scales. They can also be linked to qualification for district-, state-, and national-level teacher awards, as well as for selection to interstate or international academic tours. The credits will ensure that awarding authorities such as the SCERT also improve the quality and academic rigour of their offerings, in the absence of which the credits could be devalued. This would create a structured yet flexible framework for continuous professional development which is ‘pull-based’—where teachers possess the autonomy and opportunity to enhance their skills and knowledge—rather than ‘push-based’, where teachers are pressurised in a top-down manner to show completion numbers.
A credits-based system for teacher professional development in India, effectively implemented and supported by robust infrastructure and incentives, has the potential to transform the current approach into a more dynamic, research-supported, and teacher-centric model. By adding a layer of career progression pathways, this system can revitalise teaching as a vibrant and aspirational profession. This will be essential in addressing India’s learning crisis.
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