Abstract

Education is a fundamental right of each human being. In the constitution of the Republic of India it was envisaged that the State would provide, within 10 years from its commencement, free and compulsory education to all children up to the age of 14 years. Recently, by an act of constitutional amendment, the Parliament has made universal elementary education compulsory. Many countries of the world have gone a step beyond and made ten years of general education compulsory. In our country there are 300 million children in the school age group. The challenge now is to provide educational access for universal elementary education to 200 million children and to follow it by universal secondary education. Quality and excellence in the education sector is one of the major initiatives of the Government of India in its plans. To achieve the outcome of enhanced quality at all levels of education, Govt. of India has been focusing its attention on quality and excellence in higher education and teacher education. Teacher quality has produced voluminous studies that line many a research library. Discussion on what it is, how it is developed, and its connection to student achievement have become the feature of educational slang in the 21st century. These seek to look at teacher quality in a way in which it brings: as a means to review how the terms excellence and quality are shaped by policy, identify how educators perceive teaching quality and to review how quality is cultivated in teachers. Within this scope, this article provides an overview of teacher education and evaluation in India and lastly we discuss about issues and challenges in teacher education.