Empowering the Torch-bearers: Developing Teacher Empowerment Program to realize the new vision of education

Abstract

Teachers being “the fulcrum around which education revolvesâ€, the teacher education is identified and understood as the “most challenging sector†for systemic reforms in school education. A teacher is expected to be the facilitator of students’ learning in a manner that helps them to construct knowledge and meaning which eventually utilizes their individual experiences. The teachers are concerned, in an important way, with the total development of human beings – physical, intellectual, emotional, social, moral and spiritual. While the dimensions of teaching other than the informational and cognitive aspects may have been overlooked in modern times due to a variety of factors, one cannot deny that they constitute an integral part of the teachers’ role and functions. The implication of this is to give due emphasis to developing reflective teachers with positive attitudes, values and perspective, along with skills for the craft of teaching. Keeping this in view, the present paper attempts to design and develop a comprehensive program aiming at the holistic empowerment of teachers to assist them to do justice to their reinvented role in the wake of new vision of education.