SHILLONG: The Department of Education has tied up with IPE Global, an international development consulting organisation, in providing in-service professional development to around 3,500 secondary and higher secondary school teachers in the state.
The professional training programme is being conducted in association with the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The department is hopeful that the programme will bring much needed reform in the education scenario by improving quality of education in government aided schools through academic interventions like student- centered teaching and learning, classroom management and standard assessment.
Under the programme, teachers receive face to face training in two phases along with handholding support at the school level.
The professional development programme, launched less than a year ago, has already started to bear fruits.
Teachers of the Mawngap District Christian Multipurpose Higher Secondary School, East Khasi Hills, who recently participated in the programme, have spoken about experiencing early signs of improvement. They observed that the student- centered teaching will help them and students to develop competencies that go beyond textbooks and syllabus.
Teachers have begun building upon the traditional practice of maintaining ‘log books’ in which they enter the date and topic of the lesson covered in a particular class and are now following comprehensive competency based lesson plans.
Comprehensive lesson plans help teachers identify diverse teaching strategies for meeting learning needs of students at different learning levels.
Narrating her experience, Principal of the school, Jolly Thabah, said, “The professional development programme has helped me and my teachers understand the essential aspects of effective teaching and learning strategies that makes learning more effective.”
The school has introduced ‘activity sessions’ for students where they form groups and choose and prepare a model or project based on any subject of their choice.
Thabah informed that such initiative enhances decision making ability, team work, collaboration, critical thinking and innovative thinking among students.
“Strategies taught at the programme like collaborative learning techniques and other student learning assessment activities has made my teaching sessions more interactive”, Kamal Hasan, who teaches Science and Mathematics, said.
“One of the crucial strategies towards sustained quality is to promote culture of collaboration among teachers through professional learning communities and to remove the practice of working in isolation”, Thabah added.
Experts are of the opinion that the professional development programme has provided the right momentum and can collectively drive Meghalaya’s education system to walk on the path of success by extending support to teachers currently not covered under the programme.