The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) has released a training itinerary for teachers for the new academic session beginning in April to help them adapt to changing classroom interactions and assessments.
The teachers have to be enabled to deliver, the council said. “It is important to train teachers to bring transformation to the teaching-learning process. When we say we need to move away from rote learning to competency-based education, how will it happen without training the teachers?” Joseph Emmanuel, chief executive and secretary, CISCE, told Metro on Saturday.
These are efforts to provide training opportunities for teachers. Schools can budget, spare teachers, plan the calendar and decide the training programmes that would be beneficial to them. Every school can make their own plan, said Emmanuel.
The training is on new subjects, such as entrepreneurship, introduced this year, and artificial intelligence and robotics at the ISC level.
The council plans to train primary teachers in “art-integrated pedagogy” and “inclusive pedagogy” for students with special needs.
Some will be trained in formulating competency-based question papers for various subjects.
Over the years, the council has been increasing the share of competency-based questions in the ICSE (Class X) and ISC (Class XII) exams. There were about 40% such questions in this year’s board exams.
The objective is also for students to develop a “global outlook and develop a skill set” that would help them fare better in life, an official said
The council is also planning to overhaul the curriculum from pre-school to Class VIII, bringing in real-life experiences into the classroom.
Teaching and learning are continuous processes from the early years. Suppose a child is not able to perform well in maths in Grades IX to XII, it is not only important to look into the teaching learning pattern in those years, but also in the lower classes. Teachers’ capacity has to be built, while kids’ capacity has to be developed early. If there are learning gaps in early years, they would not go away, said Emmanuel.
The training will be in three modes: residential training programme in Hyderabad, zonal training in 80 cities across the country, and online training.
“Teachers should be able to get training facilities with minimum disruption to their schedule,” an official said.
Several schools are looking forward to these trainings.
“According to the NEP (National Education Policy 2020), every teacher must have 50 hours of capacity development programmes. Unless teachers are updated and upgraded, they won’t be able to change their teaching patterns. For students to keep up with the changes and make sense of the application-based questions, the teachers will play a key role,” said Mousumi Saha, the principal of National English School.