Teacher Education Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The key gives both are similar course details. I could not confirm this against the NCFTE 2009 text, so it is the key's reading.

NCFTE 2009 is the National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education. Searches found that both M.A. Education and M.Ed. syllabi were framed on the same document and the same course areas (perspectives in education, curriculum and pedagogic studies, engagement with the field, interdisciplinary perspectives), which agrees with the idea that the two courses have much the same content. No source I could reach quotes the framework making this comparison in words.

Options B, C and D say the courses are distinct, professional in nature or not stage specific. Nothing I found supports those, and nothing shows the key wrong, so the key is kept.

Answer: B

The key gives this is a postal course. I could not confirm the reason, so it is the key's reading.

Searches turned up nothing on the Diploma in Higher Education course for higher secondary teachers in Maharashtra or why it was stopped in 1985. The only point found is that the state split its Directorate of Education into school and higher education wings in 1984, which does not decide the question.

Nothing shows the key wrong. The other options say the aim was not achieved, no new teaching methods were used, or the curriculum was inadequate. They read like general criticisms, and I could not find evidence for any of them either, so the keyed option stands as the University's answer.

Answer: B

Maharashtra falls under the Western Regional Committee.

The National Council for Teacher Education works through four regional committees that grant and withdraw recognition of teacher education institutions in their states. The Western Regional Committee, based in Bhopal, covers Maharashtra together with Gujarat, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and the western union territories, so a Maharashtra college deals with that committee's office.

The Eastern, Northern and Southern Regional Committees cover other groups of states, so none of them handles a Maharashtra college.

Answer: A

PMOST was implemented in 1986-90.

After the National Policy on Education 1986, the Programme of Mass Orientation of School Teachers was launched in 1986 to familiarise teachers with the policy's priorities and new curricula. It ran from that year until 1990, as a short orientation for teachers across the country.

It began in the year of the policy itself, 1986, so the ranges starting in 1984, 1985 or 1987 do not fit.

Answer: A

The programme was SOPT, the Special Orientation Programme for Primary Teachers.

SOPT followed PMOST in the 1990s and was aimed at primary teachers. It trained them in the use of the teaching-learning materials supplied to schools under Operation Blackboard and in the Minimum Levels of Learning approach.

MOST, the mass orientation of school teachers (PMOST), was a general orientation on the 1986 policy, not specific to Operation Blackboard materials. DPEP was the District Primary Education Programme, a broader scheme of the 1990s, and IIPCAT is not the name of a national in-service programme of this kind.

Answer: B

The key gives fair mindedness.

The ethical standards of the teaching profession, as set out by the Ontario College of Teachers, are care, respect, trust and integrity. Respect includes trust and fair-mindedness. Hence fair-mindedness is the component tied to respect.

Honesty belongs to trust and integrity. Moral action belongs to integrity. Interest belongs to care, which the framework describes through compassion, acceptance, interest and insight. So honesty, interest and moral action are each linked to a different standard.

The stem is worded loosely ('related to respect of component of ethical standards'), but with that framework in mind option B is the one that fits.

Answer: C

The key gives (i) and (iii): confidentiality and loyalty. I could confirm part of this and not the rest.

Codes of professional ethics for teachers commonly require confidentiality about pupils and families and professional loyalty to pupils, colleagues and the profession, and both of these turned up in the codes I found. So (i) and (iii) are well supported attributes.

The doubt is about (ii) interest and (iv) emotional wellness. 'Interest' appears under the care standard of the Ontario code, so it is not clearly outside a code of ethics, and I found no published list that rules either of these out. The key's choice of only (i) and (iii) is therefore the University's reading and not something I could prove. Nothing shows it wrong, so it is kept.

Answer: B

The key gives the Education Commission reports 1964-66. I could not confirm this, so it is the key's reading.

The Education Commission under D. S. Kothari (1964-66) made wide-ranging proposals on teacher education, including better qualified teacher educators, and it is the usual source for later recommendations on the standards of postgraduate teacher training. The searches I ran did not find the specific recommendation that only graduates with three years of experience should be admitted to the M.Ed.

The Yashpal committee dealt with learning without burden and with higher education, the UGC reports of the 1960s dealt with university education in general, and the Chattopadhyaya committee (1983-85) reviewed teacher education and favoured concurrent courses. None of those matches the stem more closely, and nothing shows the key wrong, so it is kept.

Answer: D

The answer is 20 and 30 days.

The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan framework provided for 20 days of in-service training every year for all serving teachers, and 30 days of induction training for newly recruited teachers.

The other pairs (10 and 20, 20 and 28, 14 and 28) do not match these norms; in particular the induction period was a round 30 days, not 28.

Answer: A

The Justice Verma Commission recommended teacher education in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary settings as far as possible.

The Justice Verma Commission on Teacher Education (2012), set up by the Supreme Court, found that many stand-alone teacher education institutions were of poor quality. It recommended that teacher education be located within multidisciplinary higher education institutions, such as universities and colleges, so that student-teachers learn alongside other disciplines.

It did not say teacher education should be confined to DIETs or Regional Colleges. It sought to move stand-alone institutions towards multidisciplinary settings over time, rather than ordering every institution outside such settings to close.