‘To learn modern ways, teachers need to unlearn’

There is a shortfall of nearly 10 lakh trained school teachers in India, says a report. The government has called for private-public partnerships to develop relevant and up-to-date teacher training courses which will help in filling up the void. Responding to the initiative, the University of Oxford, of the UK, has tied up with a private education venture, Core Projects and Technologies Ltd, to develop a teacher training programme. DNA spoke to Dr David Johnson, programme director and dean of St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, who is here to study and understand how to bring the best out of teachers in India.

What will be the role of the University of Oxford in developing the teachers’ training programme?
Johnson (J): We will initially investigate how teachers in India perceive education, and the methods they use to teach children. Once we understand this, we will be able to develop a set of intervention methods, which will help in enhancing the capabilities of teachers. We will work with various stake holders of the Indian education space to create India-specific methods of assessing teachers’ performance.

What is going to be the biggest challenge in teaching Indian teachers?
J: An Indian teacher’s perception about judging the performance by students is hugely based on the numeric assessment. According to me, it will be toughest to make the teachers unlearn this type of assessment system. For this purpose, we will develop various benchmarks, going by which the teachers will be able to evaluate their pupils. Our programme will adopt a broad approach, where detailed assessment will involve various parameters apart from marks.

When will the training programme be ready for implementation?
J: The project has initially been planned for three years. During this time, our team of educationists will closely work with the Core Projects people. Before the course hits the market, we will be exposing the contents to a small set of teachers in India. The course will be available for both school and college-level teachers.