Looking Ahead: Insights from the US for Pakistani Teacher Education

Abstract

Pakistan teacher preparation programmmes (TE) have been criticised for not producing quality teachers like many developed and developing countries. Recently, a number of reforms have been introduced to improve teacher quality and teacher education by providing professional development to university and college faculties. It is assumed that developing TE faculties would move the TE system away from the tradition ways of teacher training and move toward a broader concept of teachers’ professional development (PD).The shift has introduced National Professional Standards of Teacher Education in 2009 and also initiated the 4-year teacher preparation programme in several public institutions. However, in this discussion paper I argue that with introduction of 4-year teacher preparation programme (based on the US model of TE) comes greater responsibilities toward teacher educators and researchers in Pakistan to look ahead to avoid the pitfalls TE programmes have fallen prey to in the US. I provide some useful and practical suggestions based on the vast literature about teacher preparation in the US.