It is essential for any country to recruit the most capable individuals into the teaching profession, provide them with quality pre-service initial teacher education, use effective mechanisms for their deployment and ensure opportunities for them to upgrade their knowledge and skills continuously over the full length of their professional career. To attract the most able to the teaching profession and retain them in-service, the government has to take steps to improve the status and motivation of teachers through better salaries and working conditions, improved autonomy and responsibility and promising career pathways that contribute to the enhancement of their professionalism as well.
One of the significant steps that have been taken towards achieving this aim is that ‘establishment of Colleges of Education for pre--service teacher education in Sri Lanka by parliament Act No.30 of 1986. This enabled capable young people who have passed G.C.E. A/L examination to be attracted to the teaching profession. The three year National Diploma in Teaching offered by the Colleges has two year institutional period and one year internship period’. (The Development of Education-National Report: 2004) Pre-service teacher education thus became an essential requirement in recruiting non graduate teachers to the system, and made redundant the 16 Teachers Colleges and the large scale Distance Education Programme of the National Institute of Education that provided initial teacher education to practicing teachers. ‘Recognizing the importance of Continuing Teacher Education, the same reforms also paved the way for the establishment of 100 Teacher Centres so that each educational zone of the country had at least one Teacher Centre. The purpose of this new initiative was to provide short term, non- residential continuing teacher education to upgrade teacher skills at least once in every seven years. Identifying the need for residential continuing teacher education of a longer duration, a decision was also made to retain some of the Teachers’ Colleges as Teacher Education Institutes’.(The Development of Education- National Report:2004)
The Institutional provision of teacher education in the past was expected to meet educational needs of the country by contributing to the academic, professional and personal growth of teachers and enhancing their professional status. ‘A National Authority on Teachers Education (N.A.T.E.) was established in 1997 to address this issue of uncoordinated development of teacher education’. (The Development of Education-National Report: 2004). The teacher education network of Sri Lanka today, consists of the National Institute of Education and four University Faculties/Departments of Education,(Faculties of Education at the University of Colombo and the Open University, Departments of Education at the University of Peradeniya and University of Jaffna),17 Colleges of Education, 4 Teacher Education Institutes,100 Teacher Centres and 30 Regional English Support Centres that had been there for sometimes to provide in-service continuing teacher education for English teachers of the system.
Table 1.2 shows that teacher training colleges and National Colleges of Education (N.C.O.E.) and are the key institutions for teacher training in Sri Lanka. The teacher training colleges were the oldest teacher training mode and whereas N.C.O.E. now become more prominent in teacher training.
Teacher Training Colleges
No: of Colleges -10
No: of Teacher Trainees -1,922
No: of Teacher Educators -156
No: passed out during the inter censual period
(1st June 2004 to 31st May 2005) -702
Table 1 : Teacher Training Colleges and National Colleges of Education in 2006 (Source: Preliminary Report- School Census: 2006)
Seventeen National Colleges of Education have since been established to give pre-service training and Advanced Level qualified student teachers are admitted to N.C.O.E. based on their Z score. The three-year teacher training programme, consists of two years residential training and a one year internship period in schools. ‘The course itself comprises two years of coursework and one year of practical in-service training for teachers specializing in subjects. Teachers who qualify from these courses are designated 'trained teachers' and are awarded the Trained Teachers' Certificate’. (Analysis report on teacher training system in Sri Lanka: 2007)
Furthermore, in 2008, the cabinet has approved a memorandum submitted by the Education Minister to formulate a national policy on teacher recruitment making first degree mandatory for recruitment to teachers’ service from 2009 on wards. According to this proposal ‘graduates below 30 will be recruited to 18 National Colleges of Education and given training for one and a half years. During this period they will be paid an allowance. On successful completion of the training programme, they will be awarded the Post-Graduate Diploma in Education (P.G.D.E.) by the National Institute of Education’. (National policy on teacher recruitment of teachers from 2009 onwards: 2008)
In addition, the Open University and the National Institute of Education (N.I.E.) have their own regional centres to offer undergraduate and postgraduate programmes on an island wide basis. These programmes help to meet current and emerging needs of the system by providing opportunities for both aspiring and practicing teachers of their country to acquire qualifications in education. ‘N.I.E. was established in 1986 and it is the prime institute in the country responsible for providing leadership for the development of general education with quality, quantity and relevance in a pluralistic society’. N.I.E general information (2005).
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