Learner-centred education reforms in India: The missing piece of teachers' beliefs

Abstract

Recent international education trends have witnessed a widespread push for promoting Western-originating ‘learner-centred’ approaches, often without adequately considering the challenges involved in crossing cultures. Like many developing countries, India has been attempting to bring a paradigm shift from ‘teacher-centred’ to ‘learner-centred’ classrooms for years, particularly through annual in-service training, yet most Indian classrooms remain dominated by rote-learning. One potential reason is that although scholars have suggested that Indian pedagogy is grounded in deeply rooted cultural values resistant to change, research and training programmes have rarely attempted to identify and address these underlying beliefs. To address this gap, this study explores how Indian teachers' beliefs relate to their practice, and whether there are certain prevalent beliefs that conflict with a learner-centred paradigm. The beliefs of 60 elementary teachers in three Indian states are explored through written questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and open-ended life-narratives, while their pedagogy is analysed through classroom observations. Findings suggest several prevalent cultural beliefs that are indeed antithetical to learner-centred pedagogy. This research should generate useful insights for teacher educators and policymakers in India and other developing countries, regarding the need for engaging with teachers' beliefs, and the need for contextualizing Western-originating progressive pedagogies in keeping with local cultural contexts.