Master trainers groom teachers in Maharashtra
In a major boost to the TEACH vertical in Rotary’s Literacy mission, RC Khadki, D 3131, has taken up a ‘master trainer programme’, which has so far trained 140 resource people from private schools and District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs) affiliated to the Maharashtra State Council for Education Research and Training (MSCERT), to equip the teachers with the latest skillsets to make classrooms interactive and interesting for the students.
Called the Train the Trainer, a 21st Century Educator programme, the project was launched in 2014–15 in partnership with an NGO Socrates Foundation for Enhanced Learning to usher in a paradigm shift in classroom learning through technology and innovative pedagogy, says Charu Mathur, Project Coordinator.
The first batch of 20 master trainers from nine schools underwent an interactive 40-hour training over five months from October 2014. Titled Teachers helping Teachers — 21st Century Master Trainers Programme, the master trainers further identified 50 teachers from two schools in underprivileged areas, mentored and trained them the latest teaching skills.
The programme trained more than 100 master trainers and 65 teachers from ZP schools in the subsequent years. With the approval from MSCERT, the club is planning to hold workshops for seven more batches to train 240 master trainers, who will in turn equip 30,000 teachers with latest teaching skills, thus covering all the 33 DIETs in the State.
Further, the club plans to train another 100 master trainers outside the MSCERT to enable them to train 500 teachers. “We have approached a few corporates to fund this massive project,” says the Club President Vineet Mathur.
For Jyoti Bodhe, Vice Principal, DES English Medium School, Pune, the “workshops are an eyeopener. It helps us think out-of-the-box with new concepts and ideas.”
The most valuable outcome of the workshop is the use of technology for teaching, the learning process and skills to be inculcated in both students and teachers, says Poorna Vidwan, Principal, New India School, Pune.
A report listing the advantages of the programme was sent to the Principal Secretary, School Education and Sports Department, by the MSCERT Director who commented the workshop helps to implement the State’s flagship project Pragat Shaikshanik Maharashtra that aims to ensure that students achieve proficiency in a set of academic parameters.
