Teacher Educators and Teacher Leaders in Rajasthan (02.05.17- 03.05.17)
On 2–3 May 2017, Deepak Verma, my colleague from Eklavya and Science team lead, CLIx, and I met the teachers and teacher educators in Sirohi and Jaipur, Rajasthan. These meetings were enabled by our state partner, Centre for Education Research and Practice. The purpose of the meetings was to talk to teachers and teacher educators about the Teacher Professional Development (TPD) programme and ask them to be our champions in this. These meetings took place with the approval of Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, Rajasthan.
The Roundtable at Sirohi
The meetings in the two cities were a study in contrasts. At Sirohi, we met a group of teachers, most of whom were from CLIx schools. The discussion was rich in what they had experienced until then. Teachers expressed their problems. The solutions were organic; the teachers were offering them to one another. They had questions about the TPD programme, the kind of activities they would be expected to do, and their roles as champions in the state. This group was very enthusiastic. It felt like a family discussion.
With teacher educators at Jaipur
In Jaipur, most of the teachers we met were from schools that did not have the CLIx programme. They needed to be introduced to the CLIx philosophy and programme. Discussions here were about general teacher problems. We met some outstanding teachers who shared their experiences in rural government schools – arranging basic infrastructure, going door-to-door to enroll children, looking for local sponsors to build basic facilities, and so on. We were in the company of teachers we had read about only in books. Some of the teachers were keen to join the CLIx TPD programme and requested information about how they could join the CLIx fold.
These visits and meetings helped us to get closer to the first step in building a ‘task force’ of teacher leaders.
(Reema Mani, Research Associate, English Team, CLIx)
