Teachers back to Learning

With the employability of Indian graduates being questioned left, right and centre, several organisations are attempting to make a change where it matters most—in the classroom, discovers Averil Nunes

Good Teacher, Good Student

“If you don’t have good teachers, how can you have good students?,” asked Ramraje Naik-Nimbalker, Chairperson, Maharashtra Legislative Council, at the Satara session of the ZEE and Rao IIT three-city seminar ‘Engineering the Future’. “We need to send our teachers abroad, so that they can learn the methods and technology that is used to teach there.”

And he’s not the only one who thinks so. “There should be a provision for students and faculty to visit and study at institutions of higher learning in developed countries, and thereby gain a world-class education. We should also be able to invite students and professors from foreign universities here, to learn and teach,” Infosys Founder, Narayana Murthy suggested, when recently asked to recommend ways that we could improve the Indian education system.

Student turned Teacher

But as with any given problem, there could be multiple solutions. Meghna Ghai Puri, President, Whistling Woods, nods in agreement when asked if she thinks Indian education is facing a dearth of good teachers. Her solution is simple, “I tell my students to come back and teach. I think it’s important to have working professionals in the system. They serve as an industry and reality connect. They’re in touch with the latest in their industry and are well equipped to teach. They can also help the students secure jobs”.

Internships for Professors

The ITM Group of Institutions has another solution. It is proposing ‘internships for professors’. Prof R S S Mani, Vice President, Institutional Development, ITM explains, “I would describe this as an ‘industry sabbatical for faculty’. Often executives from companies spend time on campuses, where they take up a few courses, talk to the students and share experiences to enrich themselves and the students. In the academic sense, a sabbatical would imply a faculty member taking a break to study further, do more research and return with a higher level of knowledge. Systems sometimes have faculty with pure academic experience and no exposure to industry standards. Even faculty with prior work experience may be out of touch with the latest in their fields. The industry sabbatical would be like a refresher course for teaching professionals. A marketing professor could intern in advertising, market research or sales; an HR professor could intern in areas like training and development or recruitment. The knowledge they acquire in this process could enhance their impact in the classroom; primarily because they can bridge the gap between theory and practice”.

ITM plans to offer such internships to all faculty who have completed a minimum of one year teaching courses on their campus. Priority would be given to those who have no industry exposure. Additionally, other faculty interested in industry internships could pursue one. ITM is currently looking at three-four month internships across all industry segments. Accoridng to Prof Mani, “We have piloted the industry sabbatical in eight to nine companies and have received positive responses. We want to reach out to maximum companies, to motivate them to be part of this model. It’s a win-win situation.”

Teach the Teacher

While industry relevance may be the focus of the ITM approach to enhancing in-class teaching, “the student is the focus of our training programmes for teachers,” reveals Darpan Vasudev, VP, Next Education and Head of NextDeeksha, which has been working with 125 schools across Mumbai, including the Army Public School, Colaba; the Navy School, Colaba; St Mary’s ICSE and St Mary’s Multipurpose High School, Navi Mumbai; St Gregorios High School, Chembur and Jankidevi Public School, Versova.

The seven-year-old education consulting company, which aims to “make the teaching-learning mechanism more effective”, ventured into the teacher-training space about three years ago, when it realised the need to help students “navigate the system without losing on their inherent talent and creativity”. From doing a health check to determine the effectiveness of teaching-learning practices to conducting leadership sessions for principals and equipping teachers to deal with a special child or one with a short attention span and tackling common problems to customising training programmes, the company is in the business of enhancing teaching-learning efficacy.

“Children need overall development—through learning all sorts of skills, sport and cultural activities—to do well in the dynamically evolving global scenario. Most of their education is as per curriculum and is out of touch with their wealth of natural talent,” says Darpan. “From pre-primary storytelling and nurturing creativity to building an emotionally intelligent classroom and competency mapping at the higher levels, the goal is always to figure out how best to help the student and to resolve teaching-learning issues. We’re looking at developing children with the life skills to adapt to any situation. This means we need to train teachers to identify a child’s creativity and enhance their natural ability, whilst moving from the theoretical to the practical way of teaching subjects such as Math, English and Science. We try to help the teacher maintain the child’s creative sanctity and natural capability whilst enabling the child to perform well academically. And it all comes down to establishing a proper student-teacher connect,” says Darpan. “Technology is by-product; it can enhance the way students learn, but it can never eliminate the teacher”.

Source | Daily News Analysis | 28 July 2015