Class teacher concept at the primary stage does not make primary teachers from varied backgrounds adequately confident to teach different subjects with the same level of confidence. It is an observed fact that a teacher coming from the background of Science and Mathematics finds it difficult to teach Social sciences and vice versa. At the secondary stage, a teacher in the B.Ed. programme has to choose two subjects and that teacher is expected to teach both of them in the schools. The present trend in the school curriculum demands thorough understanding of the individual subjects such as Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Geography, History, Civics, and Economics to be able to handle them effectively. Hence it is in the fitness of things that the teacher training programmes should focus on a subject instead of two subjects and in the schools, multiple subjects teaching may be replaced by the subject teaching system.

4.CHANGES IN PRACTICE TEACHING:

Teacher’s training programme should be managed like a professional course, though it was envisaged to function like one. With the uninhibited mushrooming of the teacher training institutions, most of them in the field of education for reasons other than academic, the quality of instruction has taken a beating. The most important segment of this training – the practice teaching – has suffered most. Teaching is indeed a performing art. Emphasis on practical training must be given, though a fair knowledge of the theoretical concepts are needed. Instead of bouts of practice teaching once or twice a year, the teacher trainees should be nurtured in a real environment at regular intervals, through out the year. The training need not be confined only to the methodology of teaching. It should also train the teacher to be an integral part of the school system. They must be made to take active part in the mock staff meetings, emergency situations that can crop up in the school, their relationship with the principal, teachers, students and parents. The practice teaching should be confined to two subjects at the elementary teacher education programme and one subject at the secondary teacher training level. Then it is possible that they develop insights in those subjects and can give justice to the subject and the students’ needs.