Exploration of challenges associated with science education at teacher education institutions

The research paper strives to have an insight over the core issues and challenges surrounding the Science subjects teacher education provided at the teacher education institutes. It has been observed that there is an overall discomfort among the students and teachers regarding the curriculum introduced by HEC for the teachers education in General Science subject. The paper adopts a qualitative strategy to explore the issue. Ten in-depth interviews of teachers practicing at the teacher education institutes have been conducted coupled with ten interviews of the students of same colleges so that the perspectives could be collected both from the teachers and students side. The interviews are conducted face to face with the help of structured questionnaires. It has been unveiled from the study that the topics included in the course are largely mismatched with the syllabus being taught at the schools. Moreover, the students not having the science background are unable to understand the concepts included in the courses. The lab facilities are also not provided at the education colleges due to which the experiments could not be conducted. Consequently, both the students and teachers are viewing the curriculum inappropriate and ineffective. It has been recommended that General science education curriculum must be revised and restructured to meet the concerns of the teachers as well as students.