NISHTHA: HRD Minister launches world’s largest teacher’s training programme

NISHTHA, the National Initiative for School Heads and Teachers Holistic Advancement, was launched by Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal to improve learning outcomes at the elementary level in schools. The programme was launched at Dr. Ambedkar International Centre in New Delhi on August 21, 2019.

NISHTHA is the largest teachers’ training programme of its kind in the world. During the launch of the programme, NISHTHA Website, primer booklet, training modules and a mobile app was also launched.

NISHTHA: Key Objectives

The main objective of the NISHTHA programme is to equip and motivate the teachers to encourage and foster critical thinking among students. The massive training programme will increase awareness among the teachers and help them develop their skills on various aspects related to inclusive education, competency-based learning and testing, learning outcomes, learner-centered pedagogy, ICT in teaching-learning including Artificial Intelligence, pre-school, pre-vocational education and school-based assessment.

 The NISHTHA programme will also help the teachers to get more awareness regarding school safety and security, personal-social qualities, health and well-being including yoga as well as about initiatives in school education such as the library, eco-club, youth club, kitchen garden, environmental concerns and school leadership qualities.

NISHTHA Programme: In Detail

The NISHTHA programme aims to build the capacity of the 42 lakh participating teachers. It will cover all teachers and Heads of schools at the elementary level in all Government schools, faculty members of State Councils of Educational Research and Training (SCERTs), District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs) as well as Block Resource Coordinators and Cluster Resource Coordinators in all States and UTs.

Under the programme, standardized training modules will be developed at the national level for all states and UTs. However, the states and UTs will be able to contextualize the training modules and use their own material and resource persons, keeping in mind the core topics and expected outcomes of NISHTHA.

The training will be conducted directly by Key Resource Persons (KRPs) and State Resource Persons (SRP), who will be identified by the State and UTs. The key resource persons themselves will be trained by 120 National Resource Persons identified by NCERT, CBSE along with KVS, NVS, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) and non-government organizations.

The main highlights of the programme are the activity-based modules including educational games and quizzes and social-emotional learning, motivational interactions, team building, preparation for school-based assessment, in-built continuous feedback mechanism, online monitoring and support system, training need and impact analysis (Pre and Post training).

The training modules of the NISHTHA programme have been developed through a consultative process with suggestions from the states and UTs and education bodies including CBSE, KVS, NVS, School Principals and NGOs such as Kaivalya Foundation, Tata Trust, Azim Premji Foundation and Aurobindo Society.

The training programme has been integrated with technology to enable smooth facilitation, availability of digital content and technology-enabled teaching methods to support the teachers.  To boost the same, a Mobile App and Learning Management System (LMS) based on MOODLE (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) have been developed by NCERT. The LMS will be used for registration of key resource persons and teachers, dissemination of resources, training gap and impact analysis, monitoring, mentoring and measuring the progress online.

Background

The teachers play an important role in shaping the future of the country and thus, they must be of the highest quality. The expectation from teachers is very different in present times. The teachers are expected to be aware of the provisions regarding gender and the rights of disabled persons and the POSCO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act.

The NISHTHA programme, hence, seeks to train all heads and teachers as first-level counselors so that they can be alert and responsive to the needs of the students.