Core Projects and Technologies Limited, India’s largest Global Education Company, today announced a path-breaking collaboration with the University of Oxford, UK for teacher capacity building and enablement in India. The new initiative is in line with the strategic focus of Core Projects to offer holistic and integrated Global Education Solutions in the Indian Education space through a single window that includes the brick and mortar components, Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) and content.
“Teacher training and finishing schools are very important segments of Indian Education. We firmly believe that teacher training would be very critical and crucial for the success of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA), the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyaan (RMSA) and the Model Schools Program.” said Chairman and Managing Director of Core Projects Mr. Sanjeev Mansotra. He further added, “We are excited about this collaboration with University of Oxford and are very optimistic on the long term impact this relationship will bring about at the ground level to strengthen the most fundamental building block of education – our teachers. As also recently stated by our Honorable Prime Minister Shri Manmohan Singh, the national shortfall of school teachers today is 10 Lacs; a number which does not include in-service training needs of a significant percentage of our current school teacher population of over 56 Lacs.”
Commenting on the opportunity Mr. Mansotra stated “We expect to take a significant majority market share in this segment which is stated to be over $ 1 billion over the next 5 years with our first mover advantage and an unbeatable collaboration with the University of Oxford, which is a world leader in this segment”.
The Director of the Oxford component of this project, Dr. David Johnson, who was in India to personally jump start the relationship said, “India is a very powerful study base to understand how teachers perform, what interventions are possible to measure performance and to better direct in-service as well as pre-service efforts in teacher capacity building” .Dr. Johnson has investigated effects of a professional development program on the leadership capabilities of head teachers and conducted a large baseline assessment of the conditions of teaching and learning and the literacy attainments of children in three states in Nigeria for the World Bank. Dr. Johnson will lead the proposed India program on behalf of University of Oxford. The project is initially slated for a duration of three years during which the Oxford team of educationists headed by Dr Johnson will closely work with Core Projects and various stakeholders of the Indian Education space to create India specific methods of assessing teacher performance, identify gaps in practice which will result in course modules intended to close such gaps.
Dr. Johnson’s previous work includes studying the impact of national reform of the mathematics curriculum on the mathematical attainment of primary schools in Sri Lanka, the effects of initiatives directed at strengthening the management of educational systems on the reading and writing outcomes of children in Bangladesh. Dr. Johnson has also conducted a number of national case reviews of educational change in developing countries including those concerned with the well-being of children in the developing world including the Young Lives Project of Department For International Development. Dr. Johnson has carried out two projects in Bhutan on behalf of UNESCO, the first being a national project on science policy and the teaching of science in primary and secondary schools and the second into the effects of a professional development program on the leadership capabilities of head teachers. Dr. Johnson also conducted a baseline analysis of 100 schools and 5,000 students on the conditions of teaching and learning and the literacy and mathematics attainments of children in three states in Nigeria on behalf of the World Bank, in advance of an extension of credit to the Nigerian educational sector.
According to Dr. Sandeep Shankar, President, Core Projects and also the Project Director of the India Component, “Intervention measures in teacher capacity building will need to include lessons already learnt by India’s teacher training providers such as the regional District Institutes for Teacher Education (DIET) and the governing State Councils for Education, Research and Training (SCERT) with oversight feedback provided by National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE). Ultimately we are looking at a path-breaking model that creates new teachers and upgrades the skills of existing teachers on a continual nationwide basis.” It is expected that Core will identify States within India with the help of MHRD where the teacher capacity effort is a major challenge and start with a pre-assessment process that sets the performance baseline. Course modules designed to bring the teachers who score below the baseline up to a minimum standard will then be put into place. Reports will be shared with MHRD and their recommendations incorporated into the design of subsequent lesson modules through a process of continual iteration. Measurement of outcomes is important and Professor Johnson will be putting in place tools that measure teacher enablement before and after program participation.
The HRD ministry has highlighted the domestic teacher capacity building as one of the most vital engines for the steam-rolling of their large impact schemes including the SSA and Model School Concepts. They along with the Government of India and many State Governments are continuously putting efforts to bridge the gap in availability of teachers, enhancing their skill sets and developing innovative techniques to deliver quality education at different school levels by trainings and tracking their performance through the use of information technology. However further effort is needed to enhance existing quality of teachers towards building better layers of education dissemination through focused exposure to on the job training programs.
