Professional Development of Teacher Educators in Assam: A Study of Prevailing Issues and Challenges

Teacher educators occupy a pivotal but often overlooked position in the teacher education system: the quality of the teachers they train is shaped, in no small part, by their own continuing professional development. This study investigated the issues and challenges that constrain the professional development (PD) of teacher educators working in Colleges of Teacher Education (CTEs) in the Kamrup Metropolitan and Kamrup Rural districts of Assam, India. Using a descriptive survey design, data were gathered from a simple random sample of 100 teacher educators drawn from 14 CTEs affiliated to Gauhati University. A 64-item questionnaire, developed by the researcher and organised around eight dimensions- personal, opportunity-related, workload and time, infrastructural, instructional, institutional, financial and psychological- was administered, and responses were analysed using frequency and percentage. Across all eight dimensions, teacher educators reported substantial constraints, most notably a heavy teaching workload and inconvenient scheduling, a scarcity of PD activities designed specifically for teacher educators rather than for school teachers, and inadequate institutional, infrastructural, and financial support. Personal factors such as competing family responsibilities and psychological barriers such as stress and low self-confidence compounded these structural constraints. The findings suggest that improving teacher educators’ professional development in Assam will require more than additional training opportunities: institutions need to allocate protected time, tailor programme content to subject specialization, strengthen ICT and library infrastructure, and put in place structured financial support and follow-up mechanisms. Implications for teacher education policy and institutional practice in Assam, and in comparable contexts, are discussed.