Curricular Battles: Is it Possible to Win the War even if a Few Battles are Lost?
This paper is a response to the two commentaries (Sircar, 2012; Sarbadhikari, 2012) written for the article â€œReforming Medical Curriculum in India in Recent Years: Conflicts of Political, Regulator, Educationist and Professional Nature and Strategies for their Resolutionâ€ (Sood & Ananthakrishnan, 2012). Considering the enormity of the process of bringing about a change, often compromises have to be made for a step wise approach to make the proposed changes more acceptable across the board. A â€˜one size fits allâ€™ approach is unlikely to work in India because of numerous conflicting pressures and the solution has to be tailored to the specific situations in the country. While a national exit examination as a measure of quality control looks admirable, a number of issues have to be addressed before it can become a reality. The authors conclude that a much higher role of educationists and professionals, consensus building, and political support are essential to achieve successful curricular reforms. A strong regulatory agency could play a definitive role in maintaining standards.
A Multi-Stakeholder ’User Driven’ Medical Curriculum to Improve Health Care Outcomes: A Commentary on Sood and Ananthakrishnan’s “Reforming Medical Curriculum in India in Recent Years: Conflicts of Political, Regulator, Educationist and Professional Natures and Strategies for their Resolution”
In this commentary of Sood et al, which stresses on the linking of teaching, learning and asÂ­sessment methods to learning objectives toward achieve excellence in postgraduate medical education, the commentator points out that policy making bodies seem to ignore that. While the authors seem to stress on communicating this aspect, the competent authorities prefer to form non-communicating Committees for delinking teaching / learning from assessment. The authors must be thanked for bringing out these issues for possible debates among all the stakeholders, leading to a renewed effort towards meaningful, timely and useful reforms of the healthcare education system in India.
Initial Teacher Training: the French view
ABSTRACT This paper, against the background of trends in the development of initial teacher training in Europe as a whole, identifies and explains some of the recent, radical reforms which were introduced in France by a socialist government. These include the need to raise the status and the competence of the teaching profession; the creation of new teacher‐training institutions of university status (Instituts universitaires de formation des maitres); the introduction of common entry qualifications at degree level for both primary and secondary levels; the harmonisation and the extension to 2 years of the post‐degree teacher‐training course and the increase in emphasis placed on professional training, both theoretical and practical. These reforms provoked a storm of protest and an examination of the reasons for this reveals a multiplicity of crucial questions which have far‐reaching implications.