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DNS Teacher Training – MP DIETs Annual Report - January to December 2014

Background

On 21 December 2012, Humana People to People India signed a Memorandum of

Understanding with the Government of Madhya Pradesh (MP) to establish and run the DNS

Teacher Training Programme in 5 District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs) in or

close to the urban areas in the State. Programme implementation commenced in mid-January

2013, in the DIETs of Ujjain, Bhopal, Indore, Dewas and Shajapur. Each DIET has about 6

DNS teacher-educators who work along with the government-appointed lecturers in

imparting the training programme.

The year started with 682 student-teachers being trained by 27 DNS teacher-educators in

assistance with 48 government-appointed lectures across all the DIETs in the State.

This year commenced with student-teachers of both the batches at the DIETs participating in

teaching practice conducted in government-run primary schools in the vicinity of the

institutes. Throughout the year, the DIET members also participated in several tree plantation

drives, holding rallies in the neighbouring communities and urging the members to plant trees

and combat the detrimental effects of Climate Change.

The student-teachers were actively involved in various periods conducted under the DNS

Programme. These included Charter Periods, National Travel, Community Events, Saturday’s

Pedagogical Sessions and It’s Show Time. Amongst other activities, some DIETs conducted

workshops on preparing Teaching and Learning Materials (TLMs) from readily available

materials which are then used to assist student-teachers in teaching primary school students.

Main Activities of the Project

Teaching Practice – As a part of the Diploma in Education (D.Ed.) curriculum, the student-

teachers need to participate in Teaching Practice (TP) in primary schools located in the

vicinity of the DIETs. According to the MP State Education Board’s curriculum for Diploma

in Education, each student needs to complete 50 days of TP in each academic session.

This year, the student-teachers were assigned to 115 primary schools located close to various

DIETs. During the course of TP they were able to work with nearly 15,798 primary school

students and teach them using TLMs and other pedagogical tools developed during the course

of their training.

Prior to the commencement of the TP, the DNS teacher-trainers at the DIETs organised a

common meeting where the DIET Principal, headmasters of all the participating Primary

Schools and student-teachers participated. In this meeting all the participants were informed

about the methods of preparing the lesson plans, observation/reporting formats and ways of

conducting the classes efficiently. During TP, the student-teachers conducted classes in the

school for 3 days and were in the DIET for the second half of the week to attend lectures,

prepare lesson plans and share their TP experience with the faculty members.

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Charter Period – The Charter Period, as an integral part of the DNS Teacher Training

Programme, derives inspiration from the Humana People to People Charter and helps

student-teachers understand the foundation principles enshrined within this document. The

central theme of the period is Solidary Humanism and in a teacher training setting, it entails

student-teachers to carry out research in the extended community outside the institution’s

premises in order to understand it better. These subjects provide the student-teachers with

practical and theoretical skills that can then be used in the community at large.

During implementation, the DNS teacher-trainers conducted courses on four charter subjects,

namely, Women Advocacy, Healthcare Expert, Entrepreneurship and Community Leader.

Following the courses, the student-teachers were divided into groups which conducted

various investigations in the community around the DIET. As part of these investigations the

student-teachers interacted with the community members, the village heads, and eminent

regional entrepreneurs and women leaders to understand various issues faced by them. The

discussions varied from issues of health, sanitation, education, water availability and

agriculture produce among other things. Traditional methods of communication such as street

plays and songs with social themes in the regional languages were used to drive home the key

points regarding issues such as drug addiction and female infanticide during these community

events. Following their investigations, student-teachers presented their findings to their Core

Groups and also to the entire class.

TLM Workshops – During this year, DNS teacher-trainers across the DIETs in MP

organised several workshops to introduce the use of Teaching and Learning Materials

(TLMs) to student-teachers. These intensive workshops trained the student-teachers to

develop TLMs from readily available materials and also informed them of their significance

in promoting activity-based learning among the students. Use of TLMs while teaching

primary school students is further in line with the principles of the National Curriculum

Framework for Teacher’s Education (NCFTE), which is a framework for teacher education

developed by a national panel of eminent educationists.

Conducted by the DNS staff, the workshops helped student-teachers develop several subject-

specific TLMs which were put in use while teaching primary school students during

Teaching Practice. These included Flashcards for teaching English and charts and models to

teach subjects such as Biology, Mathematics and Geography.

National Period – The National Period is an integral part of the DNS Teacher Training

Programme and comprises a month-long travel across the country so that the student-teachers

get a clear understanding of various contemporary realities of the country. This key

component of the DNS teacher training programme also assists future teachers in

understanding various issues in the schooling sector across the country. The highlight of this

year’s National Period organised by the MP DIETs was student-teachers of DIET Dewas

visiting neighbouring countries of Bangladesh and Nepal as a part of the travel. This

experience provided these student-teachers with an added perspective of comparing

educational systems and infrastructure between India and its neighbours.

In this year, 195 student-teachers and 27 teacher-trainers from all the 5 DIETs participated in

the national travel. The theme of the National Period was: Issues of Our Time. During the

preparatory phase, the DNS teacher-trainers and the student-teachers at all the 5 DIETs

conducted a series of common meetings and developed travel plans, including a planned

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itinerary and budget, that was mutually agreeable to all the participants. Following these

meetings, with the travel plans decided and the budget in place, the student-teachers

commenced their travel.

During the travel, all the participating student-teachers performed in-depth investigations on

history, culture, education, economy, health systems and livelihood practices of the regions

they visited. The student-teachers employed interviews and documentary analysis as their

primary tools during these researches. The travels also enhanced inter-institute interaction

across the country as the student-teachers visited DIETs in different States and learned about

teacher training methodologies used there.

The National Period has recently concluded and all the 5 DNS operations in the State at

present are compiling individual reports based on their experiences during the travels.

Tree Plantation Drive – In order to combat the detrimental effects of climate change on the

environment, the DNS teacher-trainers at the DIETs, supported by the HPPI national

headquarters in New Delhi, initiated a tree plantation drive in the regions they operate in. All

the DIET members, including pupil-teachers, faculty members and HPPI teacher-trainers

participated in this drive. As a part of the drive all the DIET members held extensive rallies in

the neighbouring communities to mobilise the members of these communities to participate

in the drive and pledge to plant at least a sapling each. Student-teachers visited a number of

neighbouring villages and held elaborate discussions on availability of agricultural land in the

area and informed the inhabitants about the impact of Global Warming. The village residents,

together with the DIET members, dug pits and planted the saplings which were collected

from the regional forest department offices. Similar actions were carried out in the primary

schools in the vicinity of the DIET, where pupil-teachers and school students contributed in

digging pits and planting the saplings. The school authorities pledged that the trees will be

looked after and that proper arrangements will be put in place to maintain their safety. By the

end of the drive 43,519 trees were planted in and around the DIETs.

The drive was a part of the national HPPI campaign aiming to plant one million trees in

Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Cleaning/Building Action – Cleaning/Building Action is an integral part of the DNS

Teacher Training Programme wherein student-teachers and the DIET staff spend a part of the

day in the upkeep of the institute’s physical infrastructure. The main purpose behind this

action is to keep the institute premises neat and clean and instil a sense of responsibility and

belongingness towards the institute among the student-teachers. During this year, the student-

teachers and the DNS teacher-trainers at all the 5 DIETs across the State spent a planned

amount of time each month cleaning the indoor and outdoor areas of the campus.

All the classrooms, assembly hall and toilets were also cleaned as part of this action. Along

with cleaning their own institute, the student-teachers of the institute also organised Cleaning

Action in various government-run primary schools in the district all through the year. In all,

17 Cleaning and Building Actions were carried out across the 5 DIETs this year.

Impact of the Project

This year, the DNS teacher training programme has completed two years of operations in

Madhya Pradesh. 349 students graduated with a Diploma in Education under the DNS

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programme in 2014 from the 5 DIETs the programme is operational in. Further, the DNS-

trained student-teachers were able to impact nearly 15,800 primary school students with the

innovative teaching methods.

Since the beginning of the year, the student-teachers under the DNS teacher training

programme have been regularly involved in diverse forms of community engagements.

During the course of their training the student-teachers participated in several Open Days and

tree plantation drives, thereby enhancing their understanding that as teachers they work as

active community leaders in stimulating necessary social change. By maintaining regular

interaction with practicing primary school teachers and headmasters during Saturday

Pedagogical Sessions, the student-teachers display heightened levels of self-confidence

essential for contemporary teachers.

Further, all through the year the student-teachers have been actively involved in various

computers and spoken English classes held under the programme which has significantly

improved their conduct and understanding of the digital platform.

As a part of its innovative training methodology, the DNS teacher-trainers at the DIETs were

involved in conducting several Cleaning and Building Actions at the institutes. These actions

have led to improvement in the existing physical infrastructure at the institutes and also

promoted increased sense of ownership towards the DIETs in student-teachers and faculty

members alike.

National Period, as an integral part of the DNS programme has led to an increased level of

confidence among the student-teachers. Buoyed by last year’s experience, when national

travel was organised for the first time at the MP DIETs, the current batch of student-teachers

were firmly in-charge of their travels right from the planning phase till the execution. This

enthusiasm was clearly evident with the student-teachers of DIET Dewas travelling to

neighbouring countries Nepal and Bangladesh this year. They further conducted studies to

compare the education systems and infrastructure between these countries and India.

Attachment 1: The Project in Numbers – January to December, 2014

Parameters Bhopal Dewas Indore Shajapur Ujjain

Number of student-teachers under DNS

training 192 172 99 98 160

Number of HPPI teachers 6 6 4 5 6

Number of DIET lecturers associated with

DNS 5 7 13 2 11

Number of PSTs involved with the DIETs 40 50 120 25 65

Number of Primary Schools involved in

TP 10 31 13 17 44

Number of Primary School students

benefitted 2,000 5,000 2,000 1,798 5,000

Number of Community Events organised 9 5 5 9 14

Number of Cleaning/Building Actions

organised 3 3 3 4 2

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Attachment 2: Case story

My name is Pooja Jaysawal and I’m a student-

teacher in the 1st Year batch of the Diploma in

Education course at the District Institute of

Education and Training, Ujjain. Before I started

my studies at the institute, I had never imagined

that I'd be learning so much more than the usual

D.Ed. curriculum.

Along with the DIET faculty, the DNS staff

also contributes to our training under the DNS

Teacher Training Programme. All the DNS

teacher-trainers are uniquely talented and possess enthusiastic dispositions. The

programme itself comprises of several components that involve in-depth community

interactions, thereby helping us understand different contemporary social issues of the

country. For instance, with regular Saturday's Pedagogical Sessions held at the DIET, we

now know the diverse roles a teacher plays in the community.

My experience during the tree plantation drive, including community mobilisation, taught me

a lot about the ills of Global Warming and detrimental effects of Climate Change. Further,

getting instructions on developing Teaching and Learning Materials from visiting

international volunteers under the DNS programme has been a very exciting experience.

The most significant change that I can observe in myself since I commenced the training at

DIET Dewas is the newfound confidence in public speaking and complete absence of stage

fright or any sort of performance anxiety. As such, the DNS programme has helped my

personal maturity and improved my time management skills along with certain other value

systems; all in a fun-filled and joyful way.

Pooja Jaysawal

1st Year student-teacher

DIET, Dewas

Madhya Pradesh

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Attachment 3: Appreciation Letter

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Attachment 4: Pictures from the Project

Student-teachers at DIET Bhopal displaying Teaching and Learning Materials made

during the workshop at the DIET

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(Above) Student-teachers during the National Period travel; (Below) Student-teachers

interacting with their counterparts in Kerala during the National Period

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(Above) Student-teachers at a Science Museum; (Below) A convocation event for

graduating students held at DIET Ujjain

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(Above) Student-teachers developing TLMs with international volunteers; (Below)

Student-teachers and DNS teacher-trainers participating in the tree plantation drive