SHILLONG: Education in India stands below average in terms of skill development, said an expert on Thursday.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a two-day workshop, Charu Mathur, founder of Socrates Foundation for Enhanced Learning, said, “Our children are not really employable outside India because they are good with the content which they learn in schools but they lack the skills which are needed in the job industry these days.”
Commenting on the recent scrapping of the no-detention policy by the Union Government, Mathur said methodologies cannot be changed from time to time unless assessment and modifications are done.
Stating that the education policy has a bigger role to play in the country, Mathur said, “Unless the policy changes we cannot completely say we have infused 21st century programmes into our education.”
“The change will happen if there is complete transformation in the policies. We cannot talk of reform these days as there has to be a complete transformation,” she added.
The two-day workshop for ‘Teachers helping teachers in North East India through 21st century Master Trainer Program’ at Shillong Public School in Laitumkhrah concluded on Thursday.
The programme was supported by US Embassy-India under ‘US-India Alumni conference, 2017’ and implemented by Socrates Foundation.
“We are implementing the programme in Guwahati and Shillong. Teachers will be trained on 21st century learning skills so that they can incorporate these skills in classrooms and prepare a lesson plan to engage children,” Mathur said.
“The other focus of the programme was that teachers take it out to a buddy so there is a societal aspect where a teacher interacts with teachers of under-privileged schools and understand their needs,” she added.
From the lesson plans and the interactive activities they prepared for children, the teachers then take the prepared lesson plans and activities to under-privileged schools.
The workshop will offer tools to support teachers to become 21st century Master Trainers and find new ways to promote student engagement and self-directed learning. As a part of the internship module of this workshop, the teachers will then impart training, mentor and guide teachers from under-privilege schools to spread the latest pedagogy.
