CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Educational outcomes in have been heading downhill before 2014 where, about half of all children who sat through seven years of primary school couldn’t pass the leaving examination (MoEVT, 2011). However, after 2014 pupils’ performance has been in rise. Poor pupils’ or students’ academic performance may be influenced by several factors, including poor working and learning environments in schools and pupils’ low salaries, but none so directly impacts what a student learns as the knowledge a teacher has acquired him–or herself and the skills he or she has to impart it (Voogt, 2012). When pupils are not provided with additional training after their initial education, how can they be able to effectively teach new curricula? Without further training, how can they teach difficult subjects like mathematics and English?
There is an increasing and strong interest among governments, institutions, international agencies and pupils in the use of open and distance education methods and technologies for initial training and continuing professional development for pupils. The last decades have seen considerable growth in the number and diversity of distance education programmes, and the integration of distance education with traditional provision and new initiatives using information and communication technologies (ICTs) (UNICEF, 1999).
These trends are prompted by the need to meet teacher shortages and the demand for more continuing education for pupils in a changing world. Pupils face a widening range of demands everywhere, for example: Pupils throughout the world are experiencing an unprecedented transition in their roles, status and demands on them are becoming increasingly (European Commission, 2000: 40). This remarks that, in European countries and other parts of the world including many pupils do not have the training or experience to cope with this changing role. On job training to pupils is crucial but further identification of the outcomes of the pupils training.
In south Asian countries (Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) pupils professional training focus on; strengthening subject matter knowledge, teaching skills (techniques), the use of teaching and learning materials including ICT, and educational institutions management (Asian Development Bank, 2017).
In these countries, on job training is viewed as a value adding practice to pupils as training aimed at covering the pupils’ professional competency gap. The Southern Asian countries are developing one just like
