An Analytical Study of the Subject of Education Practice in National Colleges of Education

Abstract

National Colleges of Education, which contribute greatly to the quality development of Sri Lankan education, are engaged in the role of training teachers and provide necessary human resources for the school system. Currently, 19 National Colleges of Education have been established across the island and are the main institutions involved in pre-service teacher training. The learning teaching process of the teacher directly affects the development of the students in the school system. Therefore, teacher preparation programs greatly affect students’ learning, and as a result the quality and performance of educational practice programs implemented in National Colleges of education should be investigated. Thus, this research has been done to study how education practice subject in the National Colleges of Education contributes to the development of teaching professional skills. The main problem of this research is the analytical study of the content of the education practice subject in the National Colleges of Education and how it works. The study also aims to examine the contribution of education practice subject to the development of the professional skills of the National Colleges of Education trainees. In relation to the main research problem, the nature of the education practice subject implemented in the National Colleges of Education and its implementation status in the institutional training as well as the student perception of the subject have been investigated. The convergent parallel design has been used for this research under mixed research methodology. The teacher trainees of five national colleges of education were selected under the simple random sampling method, the lecturers were selected under the purposive sampling method and a sample size of three hundred and thirty-five has been used for this research. In this research, strategies for modernizing the educational practice subject have been discussed. This research which examines the subject of educational practice in the National Colleges of Education will be useful for the professional development of the student teachers studying in the colleges and for future research.