CRCBRCDIETs effectiveness and linkages Based on the work carried out by the District Quality Educati

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CRC/BRC/DIETs effectiveness and linkages Based
on the work carried out by the District Quality
Education Project (Vidyankura)National Institute
of Advanced Studies, Bangalore In the District
of Chamarajanagar, Karnataka between Oct 2002
and Nov 2007

• Conference of Education Secretaries andd State
  Project Directors
• 1st August, 2009

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Chamarajanagar District

• Low Human Development Indices literacy 50
• Highest SC-TS population in the State (SC
  20-literacy 28, ST4, literacy 24)
• New District, (without DIET in 02)

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District Quality Education Project Systemic
Interventions

• Whole school work in 16 schools (9 ashram
  shalas)
• Early Reading and Language Education (Kannada)
• Development of materials for teachers and teacher
  educators in Kannada
• Middle level functionaries and Institutions
  CRC/P, BRC/P-MRP, DIETs
• MA Education with specialisation in Elementary
  Education (currently housed at TISS, Mumbai)

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Why focus on middle level functionaries and
institutions ?

• They are key links in any academic education
  reform i.e. Quality Dimension of education.
  Mediating between the vision and the classroom
  work of teachers
• Paradigm of reform in the context of UEE beyond
  monitoring and supervision
• School support and Teacher Support
• Teacher mentoring
• Teacher training
• Professional Fora for Teachers
• Community School Linkage
• Resource support (?)
• Action Research (?)
• Decentralised planning through data , record
  keeping and documentation

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Why is this work difficult?

• Meaning of academic but not teaching role not
  easily understood.
• 2. In comparison to Schools where work is direct
  and impact on teachers and children is visible
  and immediate these are invisible levels of the
  System
• 3. Work requires longer gestation and more
  systemic engagement, integration. Effects are
  delayed.
• 4. Current role clarity and institutional
  arrangement are very poor and conflicting
  interests within system.
• 5. The people are by-and-large demotivated and
  cynical about systemic support for their work.
  System is cynical particularly about the
  usefulness of CRPs and DIETs, academic
  potential.

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Focus of DQEP wok in

• Role of Middle level functionaries in Teacher
  Professional Development School Support.
• Training Design, delivery and management
• Teacher mentoring during school followup
• Monthly meetings of teachers
• Developing into a Resource Centre
• School visits other issues that may arise
  during school visit, e.g. advice on learning
  difficulties, assessment design and conduct,
  subject hard-spots, lesson and unit planning,
  concerns when teaching first generation school
  goers.

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Approach

• By and large focused on capacity building for the
  role
• more role clarification
• knowledge and skills required
• local relevance in content and form of
  activity.
• Resource and institution building
• Moving towards greater involvement with system
  for creating policy shifts to support this work.
• Development of Dual Mode MA Education
  (Elementary) for long term capacity building.

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Phases of our work
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Systemic engagement

• On the field participatory in designing
  intervention
• Phase I Consultation based, and using feedback
  to keep ones work relevant.
• Phase II Designing programmes more definitive in
  response to needs articulated by field and more
  decision making regarding needs, form, what, when
  taken by the field.
• Phase III Joining DIET as loan faculty.
• At the State level using or creating fora and
  pursuing policy related issues.

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A. Cluster Resource Persons Certificate Course

• Undertaken at the request of the District SSA
  office, with funding support from SSA.
• Response to a continued perception of
  uselessness of the CRPs in achieving the stated
  academic goals.
• Capacity buildingKnowledge-Perspectives-Skills
• School curriculum content knowledge (esp.3rd to
  7th) pedagogic knowledge,
• knowledge and perspectives on elementary
  education ability to work with teachers as a
  mentor,
• manage and use data.
• Methodology classes with assignments spread over
  a eight months, modified with field experiences.
  Reading, exercises, workshops, etc.

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What we learnt in the process

• CRP are very frustrated with their situation on
  account of an over all lack of clarity of what is
  to be achieved through their function -
  inadequate role definition and differentiation
  from other roles - tour plan of school visits,
  not supported with adequate TA data and
  office circulars work seemed to overshadow
  (although how much real time it took?) -
  CRCentre was in shambles, no reason to be
  sitting at this office - How is school quality
  to be supported through CRP work? (Mahateacher
  conception) - irrationality in CRP
  distribution no funding for CRC development.
• No systems of stock taking and acccountability
  for quality related matters.
• CRPs felt inadequate when visting schools, unable
  to command teacherr respect monthly teacher
  meetings were tedious and did not seem to
  contribute to anything very much.

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Systemic and Policy Aspects that were
addressedSSA,DSERT, CPE, P.Sec.

• grant for RC ?
• and TA ?/?
• CRP handbook ?
• CRP distribution ?
• Selection criteria
• and term?
• Induction training module ? ?
• Funds of MRP development ?

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Vis a vis the core academic functions of the CRP,
the following need to be conceptual clarity

• How is the CRP school visit expected to make an
  impact? Maha-teacher approach.
• How is a monthly meeting of teachers expected to
  make a difference?
• What kind of data does the CRP need to collect on
  a regular basis and how can this contribute to
  academic strengthening?
• In what way should CRPs and BRPs be linked?
• How should the academic supervisory functions and
  records be linked into an accountability
  frameworks?

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How should we decide how many CRPs are needed in
a block? CRP Distribution Algorithm
(micro-planning)

• EMIS data on schools management type and number
  of teachers
• Add remoteness and quality.
• Set up conditions
• Quality If school quality is good then it has to
  be visited at least once in two months if school
  quality is bad then it has to be visited at least
  once a month.
• Size For every five teachers, the CRP requires
  one day thus for large schools, a CRP may visit
  the school more than once a month (if it is a
  'bad' school).
• Remoteness If a school is remote, then whether
  it is large or small, the CRP requires one day
• CRP time on field A CRP can spend at most 20
  days a month on the field for school visits
• Mgmt type A private school needs to be visited
  for about half a day every month for admin
  related work

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School support and Quality Monitoring

• School-Cluster-Block level record keeping and
  aggregation regarding pedagogy and learning.
  Specific followup relating to trainings received.
  Fora for discussion at school(with
  HM)-cluster-block.
• Regularity of school visit to be able to propose
  action and followup.
• Aggregation and optimised role allocation of
  academic personel at block (and cluster)
• Use of Quality Monitoring Instruments (NCERT)
• Resources at Cluster level.

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Addressing Training and its lack of impact

• Out of the number of things that the BRC could be
  doing, the one that one that seems to be their
  raison detre training.
• Training seems to have little impact on account
  of
• -centralised design, with little ground
  ownership, lack of customisation and resource
  support.
• -routinised and unplanned deputation of teachers.
• -lack of human resource (MRP) with subject
  knowledge and teacher orientation, leading to
  poor session quality
• -no follow-up no notion of what follow-up could
  constituteseparate activity with no essential
  CRP involvement.

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IBCD strategy block to function as an effective
training institution,

• Developing BRC into a training facility (with
  Material Resources)
• 2) Ability to use school and cluster level data
  for planning and management of workshops and
  monitoring school quality a training management
  system.
• 3) Planning and implementing workshops for
  teachers along with a plan for follow up with
  concerned CRPs a cluster based training plan,
  and follow up training with same teacher group.
• 4) Developing pools of MRPs subject resource
  pools for each subject area of at least 15
  persons who can design and conduct teacher
  training

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IBCD-robust.Why it worked

• Local responsive and investment in training by
  MRPs.
• Content linked, focussed, rich with ideas and
  materials.
• Small group size (25 teachers) for better
  communication and addressing individual needs.
  Addressing teachers as adult professionals.
• School follow-up plan flowing out of workshop.
• Possibility of split workshops 32 etc (same
  group of teachers and trainers)

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What we learnt

• Need for systematic development of MRP pools at
  block level in all subject areaswork that can be
  undertaken best by DIETs (English needs to be at
  district level).
• Additional funding (buffer) for pre and post
  workshop work.
• Breaking away from operating norms of training
  e.g.50-gt30 persons 32days models, cluster
  based.
• CRP-training follow-up linkage
• Training management
• Material resources at Blocks

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Aspects pursued at systemic level

• Development of a training management system
  (supported by SSA, with the EGU Dept. Edu).
• Software compatible with and using the EMIS
  rational planning of trainings and also
  generating reports pertaining to trainings.
• ? and ?

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Systemic Policy level

• Grants for development of the Block into a
  RESOURCE centre. ?
• CRP-BRP ten day induction training ?
• BRP dimension of the CRP-BRP handbook ?

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Vis a vis BRCConcept and purpose.

• Should block have training focus or school
  improvement focus?
• If training then what kinds of training designs
  best influence teachers and enable them to alter
  their practice?
• How can we ensure that the RPs are knowledgeable
  and oriented to the aims of the training?
• How can a block best ensure that the right people
  receive the right trainings? (HM to nominate,
  teachers to self nominate, based on assessments
  of teaching by HM and CRP, announce training
  calendars well in advance).

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Resource availability at the Blocks and Clusters
is crucial.

• Need to invest in human developmentopportunities
  for study and development of knowledge/skill
  areas, exposure to ideas and activities,
  understanding of reform.
• Need to provide resourcesdevelop the spaces as
  resource centresresources that can be shared,
  new ideas, etc. Computer with internet.

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DIET Chamarajanagarcollaboration with
Department of Education, Karnataka

• DIET restructuring and inclusion of district
  specific special wing with Tribal Childrens
  Education Focus
• DIET-BRC-CRC structure
• MRP focus of work
• Overall training management by linking BRC-DIET
  with the training management system.
• Establishing a DERC-BERC network.

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District Education Resource Centre at DIET
Chamarajanagar

• Established in DIET in 2006. Linked DERC-BERCs.
• Users Teacher Educators, District, Block
  Education Officers, NGOs, Student Teachers,
  Teachers, Children

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Materials are resources available

• Certificate Course for CRPs
• Integrate Block and Cluster Development to
  Strengthen capabilities for training by Block and
  Cluster Resource persons and Master Resource
  Persons, including designing and implementing
  locally relevant training with relevant
  school-based support and followup (focus on
  mathematics, Kannada and English)
• Collaboration with SSA, Karnataka for developing
  a handbook for Cluster and Block Resource
  Persons.
• Establishment of working Resource Centres at
  Block and District level (DIET) to support
  teachers and teacher educators (including
  resource inventory, user management systems,
  design of space, display, etc.) Film available
• Training Management System, software compatible
  with EMIS to enable rational management of
  training of teachers as well as managing rosters
  for MRP selection.
• Algorithm for CRP allocation based on school
  size, school accessibility, school quality and
  number of requisite school visits.
• DIETs Potential and Possibilitiesa two day
  National Consultation held in collaboration with
  MHRD, New Delhi Revisioning DIETsmodels for
  effective DIETs for Karnataka
• Short film on Education Resource Centres
  (English, 10 minutes).
• MA Education (Elementary) at TISS admits nominees
  from State Education Departments.
• Materials can be downloaded from
  http//www.nias.res.in/site/html/resources-publica
  tions.htm
• Or obtained on request from psarangapani_at_hotmail.c
  om, psarangapani_at_tiss.edu

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Acknowledgements Credits

• This work was made possible with the whole
  hearted support and involvement of the
  SSA-Karnataka, DSERT Karnataka, DDPI, DIET, DyPC,
  Chamarajanagar, BEO, BRC, CRCs, teachers of
  Chamarajanagar, Kollegal, Gundlupet, Yelandur,
  Hannur Blocks.
• Grants were received from SSA-Karanataka, Sir
  Ratan Tata Trust, Mumbai, Asha for Education,
  Boston Chapter.
• Collaboration Regional Institute of Education
  (NCERT), Mysore, The Promise Foundation,
  Bangalore, Suvidya, Bangalore.
• DQEP team (2002-2007)
• Ramkumar, Rahul Mukhopadhyay, Shivkumar,
  Prakash Kamath, Padma GT, Rajashekar, K Latha,
  Vajramuni, Indira Vijaysimha, R. Padmashree,
  Narayan, Mahendra, Mahadevswamy, Veerabhadra
  Naik, Shivananju, Veerendra, Rajeshwary, Sheela
  Venkatesh, Leena Pascal, Aarabhi, Nanjundaswamy,
  Vijaylakshmi, AR Vasavi, Padma M. Sarangapani