To achieve the Millennium Development Goal of 'Education For All' by 2015, an estimated 18 million teachers will have to be recruited and trained. An additional 2 million will be required in India alone. For this kind of scale to be realised, a paradigm shift in thinking is required in how we go about educating prospective teachers.

1. Thinking Differently About Teacher Education Professor Jeremy B. Williams www.jeremybwilliams.net Chief Academic Officer, Knowledge Universe Education, Singapore Adjunct Professor, Queensland University of Technology, Australia; and Reims Management School, France. ISSA 10th Annual Conference: Seeds of Change Effective Investments in Early Childhood for Enduring Social Progress RIN Grand Hotel, Bucharest, Romania October 14-17, 2009

3. The net benefits to society of education Social Costs/Returns SC SR Years in education A B C EDCE/K-8 9-12 Post-Sec Life-long learning

4. J.J. Heckman (2000) ‘Policies to foster human capital’, Research in Economics, 54(1), 3-56. The economic debate is over 4

5. A few words from the father of child psychology Jean Piaget 1896-1980

6. Bruner Vygotsky Gardner Dewey The pedagogical debate is over Piaget

7. Professor W. Steven Barnett Director of the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at Rutgers University 7

8. 8

9. Education for All (EFA) by 2015 Universal primary education would cost $10 billion a year … about half what Americans spend on ice cream (Source: Action Aid) 9

10. Projected global teacher shortage by 2015 … 18 million India will need the greatest inflow of new teachers in the world – more than 2,000,000 10

11. Population: 1.15 billion; 1.6% p.a. Per capita income: US$1089 (US$4542 in PPP) 50% of the population is below 25 years 360 million children of school-going age The largest child population in the world 11

12. 12 India ranks 99th out of 125 on the EFA Development Index

13. 13 3.4% of children aged 2-4 yrs are in pre-school (cf. 14.4% in the US)

14. 14 The Indian government estimates that 12.6 million children under the age of 14 are engaged in child labour

15. 15 By any standard, the public education system has failed

16. 361 million should be in school 219 million are in school Drop-out rates … Grades 1-4: 16% (25m) Grades 5-8: 43% (39m) Grades 9-12: 68% (78m) 16

17. 17 90m children attend 75,000 private schools

18. 129m children attend 950,000 public schools 18

19. 19 800,000 of the public schools are in rural areas

20. 20 80% of rural schools do not have electricity (cf. 32% in urban areas)

21. With a female literacy rate of 47.8%, India is in fifth bottom position in the world (UNESCO) 21

22. Considered to be at expense of investment in boys’ education There is an acute shortage of women teachers Adolescent girls may stop attending schools due to absence of toilets 22

23. 23 Teacher absenteeism on any given day is around 25%

24. 24 Household spending on education ranks 2nd after food and groceries

25. 25 Ex-child labourers in rural India. This school opened to hold 50 children. On the first day, 150 turned up.

26. 26 Public-private partnerships may offer a solution …

27. 27

28. Could India’s ECDE/ primary teachers be junior high school graduates delivering on an online curriculum?

29. 29 Outdated infrastructure and pedagogies can be replaced through … … third party provision of buildings, solar power, curriculum and ICT

30. Source for India data http://www.flickr.com/photos/alokputul/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/happyhorizons/ Thank you for listening authenticlearning.wordpress.com jeremybwilliams This presentation is available at: www.jeremybwilliams.net/jbw/Presentations.html