Inter-State Teacher Exchange Programme

Teachers play a crucial role in the development of our children in and outside schools. Teacher education needs continuous strengthening and improvement. However, mere in-service training does not respond to all issues relating to low teacher esteem. Often, there are no streamlined mechanisms for the redressal of teachers’ grievances. Teaching- learning material are inadequate and of poor quality. Some innovative approaches, both within and outside the government have attempted to address these issues, but largely the situation demands greater thrust on building teachers’ morale and improving their quality.

The Joint GOI-UN System Education Programme aims to improve performance of teachers in the use of innovative child-centred, gender sensitive methods of teaching in multigrade classrooms. The programme emphasises the need to empower teachers to make schools an attractive centre of learning not merely for children, but for communities at large. The participating States have evolved their own contextual and locally relevant measures to empower teachers. Some of the measures proposed by the States are preparation of teacher profile, establishment of Shiksha Adalats or teachers forums for redressal of their grievances, setting up of Cluster and Block Resource Centres for academic support and monitoring, participation of teachers and teachers’ associations in programme planning, management and implementation, participation of teachers in development of teaching-learning material and textbooks, participation of teachers in development of training modules, involvement of teachers in research and development activities for elementary education, awards and incentives for innovative experiments by teachers and regular in-service training.

During the Programme Preparatory Phase, consultations with the States have revealed that teachers are invariably not exposed to variety of teaching-learning practices within and outside the State. While it should be the endeavour of State Programme Management Units (SPMUs) to expose teachers to various intra-state teaching- learning practices, the National Programme Management Unit (NPMU) aims to expose teachers and teacher educators including DIET faculty, Block Resource Persons, and Cluster Resource Persons, to a variety of teaching-learning situations across the country through Inter-State Teacher Exchange Programme.

Objectives of the Programme

• to provide an opportunity to teachers and teacher educators to understand and appreciate variety of teaching-learning practices namely, MLL based, multigrade, activity oriented, child centred, gender sensitive, followed in different States of the country;

• to provide an opportunity to teachers and teacher educators to learn about different curricula, learning materials and support mechanisms in the States;

• to provide an opportunity to teachers and teacher educators for experience sharing, particularly in regard to decentralised micro-planning, school mapping and community participation;

• to orient teachers and teacher educators in different processes of decentralisation of educational administration and functioning of VECs/SECs; and

• to provide opportunities to teachers/teacher educators for professional internship and training with governmental and non-governmental organisations and programmes.

Eligibility and Coverage

The programme would provide for a number of activities including inter-state study visits, internships, professional attachments, specialised training and field-based workshops on preparation of teaching-learning material. It would cover teachers of elementary schools and teacher educators from DIETs, BRCs and CRCs in selected programme blocks, districts and urban slums of eight participating States namely, AP, Bihar, Orissa, Rajasthan, Karantaka, MP, Maharashtra, and UP. These teachers and teacher educators should be regular functionaries and they should
remain in their present position for at least three years after they had undergone a course or done an activity under this programme.