Rinku Sarangi is an avid learner. She takes copious notes and her worksheets never miss a deadline. She has been attending classes regularly from 8 in the morning till 4.30 pm for a few days every four months.

She’d be an exemplary student — but for the fact that she’s a teacher. When she’s not studying, she teaches chemistry at Bhubaneswar’s Sai International School.

Sarangi, like thousands of other teachers, is learning more, so that she can teach better. “Learning is more enjoyable than teaching, especially when you learn how to teach,” says Sarangi, who holds a Certificate in Leadership Training from iDiscoveri, a Gurgaon-based education company. Along with two others, she is now a master trainer for teachers in her school.

Sarangi isn’t the only one to have gone back to her books. At Utpal Shanghvi School in Mumbai, an eight-month training programme is being followed by 30-odd teachers following both the Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) scheme and state Boards. “A teacher needs training on how to teach a subject, be it any examination system,” says principal Abha Dharampal.

Of the 64,17,000 teachers in India, a figure provided by the human resource and development (HRD) ministry for 2005-2006, it is estimated that at least half were trained after the National Curriculum Framework — education guidelines for students and teachers — was launched in 2005. “A few days of training made all the difference to not just my teaching but thinking as well,” says Sarangi, 40.

For long years, a teacher’s role was designed to make students understand a subject, learn it by heart and deliver results. But for a while educationists have been bemoaning the system of teaching, arguing that it needed to be more interactive, interesting and demonstrative.

“A teacher can’t think of entering the classroom with the same notes for 20 years,” says Sam Pitroda, chairman of the National Knowledge Commission, who, while arguing that the guru-shishya parampara has to change, has been calling for reforms in education.

With schools focusing on educating teachers, training centres have sprung up across the country. Educomp Solutions Limited, Everron Education Limited, NIIT Imperia, Tata Communications, Tutorvista and MBD Alchemie are some of the big players propagating new methods of teaching.

“The teacher’s role has changed from being a supplier of information to a facilitator of learning,” asserts Lina Ashar, founder of Kangaroo Kids Education Limited (KKEL). The group opened six new teacher training centres last year after setting up its first centre in 2004.

Policymakers too are stressing the need for changes not just in school curriculum but in teaching methods. The National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education developed by the National Council for Teacher Education and released last year is a case in point. It deals with preparing and re-orienting teachers so that children can learn through activities, discovery and exploration of their environment.

The present training programmes are a part of the Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation of students, a measure announced by HRD minister Kapil Sibal last year in a bid to overhaul the education system. Though the teachers are trained by the National Council of Educational Research and Training and school Boards, top schools are involving private players to improve standards of teaching.

What’s clear though is that educational institutes have realised that learning can no longer be achieved with static curricula and outdated teaching methods. It began with schools opting for smart classrooms where learning was done through presentations, online lessons and audio-video modules. But now there’s a lot more.

Many schools across the country are training their educators to keep pace with the changing demands of the curriculum. Schools such as KKEL and Jamnabai Narsee School in Mumbai have their own learning centres, while others such as the Bombay Scottish High School and Bangalore International have outsourced the training to education companies such as iDiscoveri.

A programme called XSEED created by iDiscoveri is being implemented in 400 schools across the country following different Boards. The XSEED programme asks teachers to teach through active experimentation. They are supported with tools and lesson plans and are taught skills to keep a child engaged in the classroom.

“Our approach is to make training more demonstration-oriented and combine it with subject-specific lesson plans and assessment tools. It actually shows visible results in children’s learning,” says Anustup Nayak, one of the partners of iDiscoveri.

Teachers, for instance, are encouraged to make learning more enjoyable. Under XSEED, teachers are asked to show students how a larva turns into a butterfly or demonstrate the germination process in a tea cup. “It may take a few days to see the results but children learn the lesson for life,” says Shilpi Sahoo, trustee of Sai International School, Bhubaneswar.

The trend is being followed by some colleges too. Many institutes are developing productive refresher courses for teachers. Even engineering colleges have realised the need to outsource training modules for their teachers.

The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) has tied up with the Tamil Nadu-based Amrita University for an online training module that will have over 1,000 teachers from 500 engineering colleges undergoing training through 32 nodal centres. The Institute first started training faculty members from engineering colleges via satellite television in December 2009. The new model by IIT-B will also soon see the launch of a free portal, which would contain audio-video recorded lectures, teaching-learning material and question banks.

The top information technology companies are doing their bit too. In 2007, Wipro formally launched Mission10X for faculty members and has so far trained more than 11,000 teachers from over 800 engineering colleges.

“Educators should create a balance between the traditional systems and need to innovate methodologies to keep pace with the changing environment and demanding learners,” says S. Nagarjuna, head of Mission10X.

Tata Consultancy Services has also launched what it calls an Academic Interface Programme for intense academia-industry training. Chip design company Synopsys launched SEER Akademi in 2009 to train teachers and students from engineering institutes. “We actively approach colleges that are keen to train their faculty from the electronics department,” says Srikanth Jadcherla, CEO of the Bangalore-based SEER Akademi.

The company has reworked the microelectronics curriculum of colleges such as the Bhubaneswar Institute of Technology, Chitkara University, Punjab, and the North East Technical Education Society in Assam. Jadcherla adds that the focus is on teaching methodologies, domain knowledge and effective imparting of skills.

The benefits are already being felt, with institutes reporting a surge in interest in learning among students. “My students now want to come to school even on weekends,” says Sahoo.

The reason, says Rajendra S. Tare, principal, Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon, is the reworked presentation of a subject. So far, Tare says, teachers, especially those in engineering colleges, had subject knowledge, but no teaching skills. Now they are combining knowledge with ways of imparting knowledge, says Tare, whose college recently concluded a week-long training programme with Wipro’s Mission10X.

Ashar of KKEL believes student-centric methods keep both the learner and the teacher happy. “The professional degree is loaded with redundant content which focuses on theory. The training modules help in doing everything practically,” she adds.

Schools are now earmarking expenses on teacher training as a significant part of their annual budget. Though most schools conduct in-house training free of cost, when outsourced the schools have to pay for the services. XSEED charges around Rs 3 lakh to Rs 4 lakh per school, depending on the package. In many cases, the expenses are borne by the students. “It would put an additional expense of Rs 80 to Rs 100 per child a month,” says Nayak of iDiscoveri. At Utpal Shanghvi, teachers have to shell out anything between Rs 40,000 and Rs 80,000 for the CIE certification. KKEL spends around 20 per cent of its annual budget on teacher training activities.

However, not everybody is as enthusiastic about the new modules of teaching teachers. Some believe that the focus on new training methodologies will widen the gap between private and public education. “The gap always existed and it’s just growing wider with the efforts that the private schools are putting in,” says Dharampal of Utpal Shanghvi.

But private schools have always had an edge over government institutes. “The success of children in private schools is largely because of the greater access learners have to resources,” says S. Mohanraj, a professor at the department of training and development, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. “Government schools or state universities do not have funds to match the facilities available in private institutions,” he adds.

Many believe that despite the limited resources, for more informed students government institutions have to encourage new methods of teaching. “Public schools do not have enough teacher training facilities because of a lack of resources. But one does not always have to pay a huge sum to deliver,” says Dileep Chenoy, CEO and managing director of the National Skill Development Corporation, stressing the need for government institutions to look at different ways for faculty training.

It seems more and more teachers are going to learn, unlearn and learn again. As Sarangi puts it, “We have become students for life for our students.”

NEW DEAL

Teachers are being asked to:

► Teach through activities, discovery and exploration of the students’ environment

►Base their teaching on presentations, online lessons, and audio-video modules

►Emphasise on active experimentation, supported with tools and lesson plans, to keep children engaged in the classroom