Reconceptualizing Teacher Identity in a Changing Educational Landscape: Challenges and Opportunities for Professional Practice

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES

The evolving educational landscape of the 21st century has brought significant transformations in how teacher identity is conceptualized and enacted. In India, recent policy frameworks such as the National Education Policy (NEP, 2020), the National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST, 2022), and the National Curriculum Framework for the Foundational Stage (NCF-FS, 2022) emphasize the teacher as a reflective practitioner, knowledge creator, and agent of change. Along with the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE, 2023) and the mandate for a minimum of 50 hours of annual Continuous Professional Development (CPD), these policy initiatives collectively reinforce the shift toward viewing teaching as a dynamic, lifelong learning profession. This reconceptualization requires teachers to continuously reconstruct their professional identities in response to changing pedagogical paradigms, digital integration, inclusivity, and evolving accountability expectations. The paper examines the changing educational landscape in the era of NEP 2020 and analyses the challenges educators face in aligning personal beliefs, institutional norms, and systemic reforms. It also explores opportunities for strengthening teacher agency through professional learning communities, mentoring, and research-informed practice. The paper argues for a transformative paradigm of teacher identity—one that integrates personal, professional, and policy dimensions to foster reflective professionalism, ethical engagement, and lifelong learning. In doing so, it positions teacher identity as a cornerstone of the educational transformation envisioned in NEP 2020 and related national frameworks.

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