Monday, February 8, 2010

Fwd: [se-ed] DISCUSSION: Replicating Innovative Indian Experiences forImplementation of Right to Education. Reply by 03 February 2010.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Neeraj Das Guru <guru_neeraj@yahoo.co.in>
Date: Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 2:59 PM
Subject: Re: [se-ed] DISCUSSION: Replicating Innovative Indian Experiences forImplementation of Right to Education. Reply by 03 February 2010.
To: Education Community <se-ed@solutionexchange-un.net.in>


Dear All,

We should always keep in mind that the motivation is not absolute; it is with reference to the assignment. It means that those who are not motivated in teaching may be motivated in doing some other things. The key to the success is in identification of interest of those who are not motivated in teaching and accordingly channelize their energy productively for development of education.
There are teachers who have good motivation with or without skills. Different training programmes can be helpful in developing these teachers for all productive purposes in education system. Different strategy is required for rest types of teachers who lack motivation with skill or without skill.

My stand on this issue is clear that motivation of teacher cannot improve through training. Different training programmes can improve and benefit the system by improving some skill sets of the motivated lot only.

Teachers who have good skill sets and poor motivation to teach can easily be identified. They always complain the system. These are the teachers who enjoy everything except teaching. They would tell you their handicap that they are being engaged in non academic work etc but in actual, they try their best to get engaged in all such types of non academic work. These teachers are very eloquent and can deliver good speeches and always interested in getting engaged with different programmes as monitors and trainers and they are always misunderstood as motivated teachers. It is due to this reason most of the training programmes fails. These teachers never identify themselves with the different training programmes they are attached with as trainers. They are one who knows the avenues which serve best of their interest. 

Some of above type of teachers are as follows;
  • Teachers who have good skills set but absolute lacking of motivation in teaching. These teachers are very few in number. They are leaders of teachers at different level. They can be given responsibility of monitoring and implementation of programme as they would otherwise also can not be used in classroom teaching. These teachers can be good managers. These teachers should be given space and respect. Regular monitoring of their assigned responsibility and respect to their suggestion within a framework in regular interaction sessions would be helpful in improving situation. This should be done at the component in-charge level not at the district coordinator level. The component in-charge should have good relationship with these leaders with a clear cut view that these teachers can never be mainstreamed in classroom teaching.
  • Another kind of teacher is those who are weak at skills and lack motivation. These are the teachers who make the voice of leaders louder on issues related to incompetence of governments' efforts by aggressively supporting their leaders. They are potential leaders who have strong hold at cluster level. If they are interacted at the individual level they will accept all the good things but in group they will oppose all changes as the illogical opposition is base of their power seeker behavior as politician who wishes to impress its audience. The implementer should have good relation with these teachers to avoid nuisance and create support at the cluster level. We need to them assign little different work suited to their best skill sets by motivating them to do something different. They can be engaged in as advisors to the teachers. The implementers need to praise their every small contribution and share his good works with the teachers on which he has command. Their ego will be satisfied. These teachers can be channelized slowly to the mainstream.    
  • Third kinds of teachers are those who lack motivation as well as skills. Their lack of motivation is largely because of poor skill sets they are having. By virtue, they are good followers as they have no other options. One can create pressure on them through their leaders itself. The leaders also find them as soft targets of change. In this way one can channelize the energy of the leaders in some less productive but useful work.

Another ways to improve motivation is praising of good work done by the teachers by writing good specific comments in the service books, sharing of good work done by the teachers in public meeting and in promoting media to highlight the achievements. Active onsite support system without fear of punishment can also make education system efficient. There is very interesting thing about the punishment. In most of the cases the leaders who are disturbing the system are seldom punished. Only those who are either motivated or who absolutely lack motivation and skill both get punishment. So the punishments either put brakes on efficiency or in second case have no impact on efficiency.

Last but not the least and the most difficult is to bring the transparency in processes of implementation of programme. It is the most important thing which motivates teachers.

All the above has been written on the basis of good work done in Vaishali district of Bihar as UNICEF first extender engaged in implementation of programme at whole district level to make impact on education system through model setting and advocacy. It later create base of many changes in education in Bihar like "Sankalp Programme" (on out of school), establishment of strong child forum like Meena Manch and child cabinet and remedial teaching with handholding of the children of excluded community, setting up of small library in the school etc.

Neeraj Das Guru
ICRA Management Consulting Services Limited (iMaCS)
Patna

From: Radhika Herzberger [mailto:radhika@rishivalley.org]
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 4:02 PM
To: 'Education Community'
Subject: [se-ed] DISCUSSION: Replicating Innovative Indian Experiences forImplementation of Right to Education. Reply by 03 February 2010.

Moderator's Note: Dear Members, we are initiating discussion on learning from the innovative initiatives in order to implement Right to Education Act, the historical legal commitment by Government of India to provide for free and compulsory education to all children of the Country. As a community of practitioners interested in sharing, linking and learning, we all are aware of the importance of knowledge in helping us improve our interventions. India has a range of very innovative – creative experiments with a huge potential to learn from and replicate. This discussion would help us in sharing ways and methods to hold hands of the government in shouldering the responsibility to make available quality education to all children.

We are happy to announce that Dr. Radhika Herzberger, a well known name amongst the people working in the field of education in India and across the borders, has agreed to Guest Moderate this discussion. Dr. Radhika Herzberger teaches history and presently serves as Director of Rishi Valley Education Centre, a pioneering educational initiative in the Country. As an educational thinker, philosopher and practitioner she has in her credit a number of well acclaimed books written on various aspects of education. Her out of the box thinking and reflection on the challenges in education and the pragmatic approach to shape those ideas in the form of action has been widely received, studied and used by interventions all over.

We look forward to a stimulating discussion on the issue.

Shubhangi  

Dear Friends,

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 received the assent of the President of India in August 2009.  The main provisions of the Act can be found at; web link http://education.nic.in/Elementary/free%20and%20compulsory.pdf  (Size 1.48 MB)

The debates on the Right to Education, especially in Solution Exchange, has been on

The Consolidated Replies with respect to each of the discussion list some innovations in education, and discuss critical issues pertaining to the Right to Education (RTE)

We at the Rishi Valley School believe that education is the one most critical aspect of human development that impacts all social and economic development in a country and across the world.  Now that the right to education has been enacted, and the government is fully committed to finding the solution to reaching large numbers, we feel it is important to engage in a serious discourse on the quality of education that we provide to children, especially at the primary level.

We would therefore request inputs from the members of the education community on the following key aspects of quality of education: 
  • How can the government be supported to improve the motivation and skills of existing teachers in government schools?
  • Moreover, are there effective ways of bringing into the pool of teachers who are trained and motivated a large number of youths with graduate degrees (sometimes even 'teacher qualifications'), who are currently unemployed?
  • The Rishi Valley School's Rural Education Centre works with a methodology, which has been replicated and scaled up in both rural and urban locales within India, and has been nationally and internationally acclaimed (URL). There are many such methodologies worth replicating. Please share the teaching methodologies you have used and found useful in enabling high quality learning  teaching and monitoring systems, and which can be scaled up by government schools. 
  • Our belief is that school education must continue to be the responsibility of the state and the state must invest in improving its own capacity to deliver.  We would invite comments from members on how official resources are best directed in the implementation of the RTE Act:  
·   In government schools
·   Through NGOs and educational foundations
·   Through Public-Private Partnership (PPPS) with for-profit educational organization

Such a discussion will help reputed educational organizations to provide pro-active support to the government in implementation of RTEA, and help direct official resources towards high quality education, that is innovative and suited to local needs. Post discussion, it is also proposed to bring together a group of reputed educational institutions within the country to share the lessons from these approaches, and brainstorm to scale these up in different parts of the country as appropriate?  The new approaches can be incubated with NGOs working in partnership with government schools, and government resources can be allocated to these.

Regards

Radhika Herzberger and A. Kumaraswamy
Rishi Valley School
Madanapalle, Chittoor District
Andhra Pradesh
(www.rishivalley.org)




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