National Teachers Day 2018: AICTE to train teachers about blend learning and technology

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has planned to start a training programme for the teachers which will aim to make them tech-savvy and understand the concept of blend learning. The blend learning is an education programme (formal or non-formal) that combines online digital media with traditional classroom methods. Manpreet Singh Manna, Director (PMSSS & SWAYAM), stated to the Times of India, "As many as 75 National Resource Centres (NRC) across the country will create 40 hours content for various field, including Science, Literature, Law among others, and it will be a fresher course for teachers to know how to be in pace with the changing technology and specialise in his or her domain."

"A need was felt to bridge the gap between teachers and students, who are tech-savvy and depend more on online platforms for their studies. We have roped in central universities, IITs, NITs for creating content to provide teaching pedagogy of a particular subject,” he added.

Mentioning an example, Manna said if one has pursued Civil Engineering during their undergraduate and postgraduation, but he lacked basic teaching sense, teaching aptitude and latest trends of classrooms, this programme will help to bridge that gap.

"It has been created with an objective to make classrooms interesting for students, who feel that teachers lack knowledge of latest industry trends." The target is to train all the faculties, consisting of 6 lakh teachers under the domain of AICTE.