Women account for about 50 per cent of the teaching workforce, but there are significant inter-state and urban-rural variations. The majority of teachers in urban areas are women, in contrast to rural areas. The early childhood education, special education and private unaided schools sectors are also highly feminized. The teaching workforce has a deficit of over one million at current student strength and the need is likely to grow, given the shortage of teachers in certain education levels and subjects such as early childhood education, special education, physical education, music, arts, and curricular streams of vocational education. In 15 years, about 30 per cent of the current workforce will need to be replaced. The teaching profession has average status in the country, but it is a career of choice for women and youth from rural areas in particular. Private school teachers and early childhood education teachers are highly vulnerable groups, with many working without contracts at low salaries, with no health or maternity leave benefits. Teacher governance remains a focal area for systemic reform, accounting for 70 per cent of governance metric score in the Performance Grading Index. Teacher workload is high – contrary to public perception – although invisible, and a source of stress, the report emphasized. Teachers value being given professional autonomy, and disregard of this is demotivating. Teachers’ voices in the system in matters of policy and governance can be enhanced through professional teachers’ networks, and unions, it suggested. Most accountability systems tend to emphasize monitoring. Professional standards need to be made a part of a larger system and used in the context of professional development rather than accountability. A large proportion of teacher education programmes in India are run in ‘self-financed’ colleges. Their geographic spread across the country is uneven. There are very few programmes to prepare special education, vocational education, arts and music education teachers.Though by volume, admissions in B.Ed. programme seem to be stable, there are fewer science students opting for it in several states. D.El.Ed and M.Ed programmes are shrinking. Pre-service teacher education curricula still need to be improved, and supported with Indian-language teaching-learning resources.The report noted that a large number of teachers are still under-qualified – 7.7 per cent in pre-primary, 4.6 per cent in primary, and 3.3 per cent in upper primary. While in-service teacher education is widespread and now incorporates technology, research is needed to understand its impact and to identify which models work. The report also looks at teachers’ experience of ICT. During the COVID-19 induced shut down of educational institutions, there was much talk about online classes. However, teachers felt it was time-consuming, and that they lacked professional skills, even as a large proportion of students had limited or no access to devices and data. The pandemic also exposed the vulnerability and insecurity of teachers.
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