Teacher training for the New India: A post-NEP 2020 context

Every morning hours before the school bill chimes, Dhuniram* takes a stroll past the dusty eyeglass of his village in Eastern Uttar Pradesh. A second-generation government school teacher, he pauses at the doorsteps of the children who have not attended school for weeks with a smile or gentle push.

Sometimes he simply sits with the grandmother or the mother in the verandah drinking tea, to inform them why staying in school or going to school still matters.

In his class, he weaves together Bhojpuri, Hindi, Science, Math and English textbooks to develop relevant lessons for his children from the. His blackboard is scratched and broken, and he might have to teach children of three different classes at once in the same class.

His eyes are constantly searching for the hungry child, the scared child, the struggling child.

For most of the time, he is more than a teacher, a substitute parent, a policy translator, a link between school and home, a negotiator of hope and reality, a weaver of prerequisite and actual learning, between past performances and future possibility.

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 committed to transforming learning across the country, but the question we must pose is who do we believe to make it available in our classrooms?

Teachers like Dhuniram represent the pulsating heart of such a query and therefore we must return to an even more fundamental query: Who is a teacher in today's India?

India's school system caters to 24.8 crore students enrolled in 14.72 lakh schools by 98 lakh teachers, according to Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) and National Economic Survey 2024–25.

50% of students are educated and 51% of teachers are working in government schools. But the teachers are not a homogeneous group — their realities differ quite extensively based on socio-economic background, job security, remuneration, and working conditions.

Even when they enter classrooms, the trajectories of future teachers are shaped by market forces, economic coercion, and unequal access to good education.

The tradition of the Indian teacher has also been shaped by power and purpose. From the revered Guru of the past to the colonial bureaucrat trained to reproduce knowledge, the teacher's role has shifted between freedom and control.

After independence, teachers were envisioned as the forces behind a democratic country — but this dream was sabotaged by under-funded, isolated teacher training schools that cared about compliance, not imagination.

Thus, teacher training slowly became a transmission space and not a discussion space. We have always been interested in — 'how to teach' — but never actually sorted out in-depth the what, why, or for whom of teaching.

Our teachers are offered a highly standardized curriculum, yet a standardized method not only has a tendency to flatten the richness but also constrains the potential of teachers to think, adapt, and innovate as per the needs of their students.

NEP 2020 had recognized this long-standing gap and called for the establishment of an integrated four-year programme. This was a significant step but structure alone cannot change the essence of teacher education.

Because the real crisis is not just with what we teach teachers to do — but with how we even think of them in the first place. As long as we keep thinking of teachers as solely implementers of curriculum — not thinkers, collaborators, co-creators, and caregivers — reforms will not go any further than the policy.

All too often, teachers enter the classroom with questions that have not been investigated, internalized hierarchies, and a lack of clarity about their own purpose because their own preparation never allowed them to reflect critically on questions.

And in India, where caste, gender, language, religion, and poverty inescapably condition learning, thoughtful pedagogy can still reinscribe inequality unless teachers are helped to critically think through both their own position and the position of their own students.

Without reflection, even progressive methods can fail the most needy learners. So we need to move beyond teacher training and methods to the development of reflective practitioners.

Let's start first by investing in the construction of teacher training institutions as communities of inquiry, not bureaucracy. Institutions must be infused with discussion, debate and secure connections to local schools and communities.

Second, teacher education cannot be a one-off point but a life course. Communities of practice, reflection, and in-situ coaching and mentoring should become the rule, rather than the exception.

Third, we must shift the cultural imagination of the teacher. Honour them, not as heroes who have endured sacrifice, but as successful professionals, whose knowledge is vital to building an equal future. In a new India, which is asking questions about what learning will be like, let us remember also: unless people in the classroom change, classrooms do not.

Teachers like Dhuniram are already setting the example — not through heroics, but through little, everyday actions of love, justice, and belief in their children.