Centre plans training for govt school principals

The Centre on Wednesday rolled out a special training programme for all government school principals and teachers to enable them to take their students away from rote learning and encourage competency-based learning among them.

As many as 42 lakh principals and teachers will be trained during the first phase of the programme, titled—National Initiative for School Heads' and Teachers' Holistic Advancement (NISHTHA)--launched by Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank at a function.

The training programme, formulated after several rounds of consultations with various organisations under the HRD ministry, State governments and some non-government organisations including Aurobindo Society, seeks to improve quality of education in government schools and learning outcome of the students.

Under NISHTHA, each of the teachers will undergo five-day multi-dimensional, multifarious and integrated training while the principals will undertake two-day training.

“The aim of this training is to motivate and equip teachers to encourage and foster critical thinking in students, handle diverse situations and act as first-level counsellors,” a ministry official said.

The training will focus on developing in them skills on various aspects of learning, school safety and security, inclusive education and ICT in teaching-learning including Artificial Intelligence. Under the health and well-being module, teachers will also learn Yoga.

“We will not just let them go after they complete their training. We will create WhatsApp groups and Facebook pages to keep them in touch. They can share their experiences and challenges with us and we will help them solve their problems,” HRD Ministry school education department secretary Rina Ray said.

Under the NISHTHA, the Ministry will offer a series of “blended training courses” for the government school teachers “which will not just be face to face programme but also include Swayam and many more IT platforms,” she added.

Under the programme, short-duration intensive training will also be provided to the faculty members of the state councils of educational research and training (SCERTs), district institutes of education and training (DIETs) as well as officials and resource persons from Block Resource Centres (BRCs) and cluster resource centres (CRCs) in all the states and union territories (UTs).

The first phase of the training, which is expected to be completed in six months, will be conducted by as many as 33,120 key resource persons (KRPs) and the state resource persons (SRP), identified by the respective states and UTs.

“There is a need to connect our generation to our roots, culture, knowledge and science. And, it is in the hands of the teachers. This programme will help build the capacity of our teachers,” the HRD minister said while addressing the function organised to launch the programme.