Teacher Education In Pakistan

Introduction
Teacher education plays vital role in reforming and improving the educational system of a country. In Pakistan, Colleges of Education (GCEs) Government Colleges for Elementary Teachers (GCETs) and the University Departments of Education are the major institutions having a great impact on teacher training through their academic programmes. The educational system of any country is highly dependent of the quality of its teachers. The Report of the Commission on National Education (1959) adds that “the teacher should be academically well trained in subjects he teaches and have had sound professional training to teach his subjects”. There are almost millions of teachers currently working in the public and private sector

Then AIOU started different Teacher Education Programmes like CT, PTC and ATTC (Arabic Teacher Training Course). These programmes were introduced for the training and orientation of the untrained teachers working in different government schools (AIOU 1999). After some time, AIOU extended the range of its teacher education programmes up to B.Ed (General), B.Ed (Arts), B.Ed (Arabic), M.A Education, M.Ed (in four different disciplines), M.A EPM (Educational Planning and Management), Diploma in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), M.A TEFL, M.Phil in 16 different disciplines and PhD in 14 in disciplines . AIOU also started Bachelor and Masters Degree Programmes in Business Administration (BBA and MBA) through the distance learning system, to meet the increasing needs of the business community. Most recently, Computer Programmes (Bachelors and PGC in Computer Science) and Business Administration have been started and face-to-face instruction/teaching is provided at the different study centers. This Open University offers many programs from Secondary School Certificate (Matric) to PhD in many

Allama Iqbal Open University has been providing education through distance and non-formal mode for many years from now. The services and goods partially consist of educational materials, study guides, course units, the tutorial and media support. Rashid, M. (1993, p.41) has stated that distance and non-formal education as provided by the AIOU is cheaper as compared to the formal system of education., because the formal system is institutionalized and requires full time teachers which add its cost.
The B.Ed programme of AIOU consists of three semesters, 06 credits and one course workshop and practice teaching (practicum), 02 weeks duration for the workshop and 04 weeks for the teaching practice, consisted of two elective courses containing 40 lessons each. All the students having above than 45% marks in a Bachelors degree are eligible for admission in B.Ed. Following is the scheme of studies of B.Ed programme: Table 2: Scheme of Studies of