Quality education is the right of every child. The poorest of the poor do not have access to quality education.
Quality education is largely determined by the knowledge and skills of education providers. Quality education is intricately linked to sustained participation in school. However, sustained participation is difficult when education is of low quality or unaffordable.
In order to receive education in schools, rural children walk miles, crossing streams, rivers and forests. Even children in the primary section walk sometimes two hours a day to and fro to school. During the monsoon, the terrain becomes more difficult with incessant rain. Thus, the 84th Amendment of the Indian Constitution, which says that all children between age 4 and 14 should complete the elementary education by 2010; and the UN Millennium Development Goal, achieve universal primary education by 2015, seems to be a distant dream for Darjeeling.
The syllabus used is not designed keeping in mind the unique features of Darjeeling with no relevance to the socio-ecological systems. Importantly, the present education system is not life skilled oriented. Students are passive recipients of information. This has an important connotation for the rural students as they lose their traditional skills of agriculture as well as gain no other skills for meaningful employment. Thus, the present system is creating a whole lot of half- baked dropouts who are misfits in their own environment.
The knowledge and skills of the teachers are limited when it comes to child centric life skills oriented education. The common understanding is that the teacher knows all and the students none and that the students must be educated by the rule of the rod. The common understanding and practice is a one-way information flow from the teacher to the students denying the students capacity and creativity.
Teachers from remote schools are provided with a capacity enhancement programme of 25 days.
The training addresses the field realities satisfying the issues of actual classroom transaction, greater participation of teachers providing a thrust to the teachers' creativity and understanding and the changing roles.
The training is conducted in 4 phases.
The first ten days is the sensitization, motivation and orientation part of the training, which forms the backbone of future trainings. The remaining three is specifically designed to cater to mathematics, language and environmental studies. Each subject is given 5 days trainings. Even though the training is spread over a period of one year the twenty-five days come as one single package. It is expected that the same teachers come for the entire training so that the continuity remains which make learning more conducive.
The training is a combination of joyful learning methods and its conceptual background. The importance of Teaching Learning Materials and the role of activities while teaching is an important component of the training. The entire training is a residential one.
Anugyalaya resource team of 2 full time staff and three trainer of trainers teachers facilitate the training. At the end of the each phase management is called to assess and evaluate the on going training program.
Between the gaps of the training master trainers/ trainer provide support visit to the schools.
After completion of the four phases, teachers are awarded with a "Certificate of Honor."
The concept of cluster is promoted where schools of a certain geographical proximity are brought together in order to share, learn and to find out the solution of the common problems they face while teaching. Gender, equity, health, organic farming, disaster preparedness and other issues especially of the Darjeeling Hills are cross cutting themes. |
