The teacher fellowship programme has been
envisaged as an initiative to develop a well-rounded teacher
enrichment programme that would couple sound academic grounding
with exposure to practical examples of innovative pedagogy at
elementary level, applied in a variety of settings (e.g.
urban/rural; government/non-government), buttressed with processes
of conceptualizing curricula relevant to situations they are
applied in. It is expected that such teachers would be in a
position to undertake systematic documentation and action research
on specific issues emerging from the Bodh's (and other projects')
work with urban and rural communities and thereby strengthen the
theoretical underpinnings of the education processes followed in
Bodhshalas.
Purpose and key parameters
envisaged for the fellowship programme
With the financial support of European
Commission/Aga Khan Foundation under PESLE, the programme seeks to
achieve the above in two ways: first, by attracting trained
teachers emerging from formal teacher-training colleges to gain
exposure to grounded initiatives in promoting quality education
among some of the most deprived and unattended populations. In
this regard, it is notable that the B.El.Ed course has taken a
fresh perspective on teacher education. Bodh would like to provide
B.El.Ed graduates the opportunity to apply their knowledge in
schools, do justice to their desire to innovate in an appropriate
environment and reify their convictions in principles of effective
education. They would have exposure to innovations being developed
by different agencies in India, further academic inputs on
specific aspects and an opportunity to undertake action research
projects on specific issues. This could also generate documented
experiences from local contexts that could further enrich teacher
education curricula. In addition to B.El.Ed, the fellowship
programme would be offered to fresh graduates from the BEd, MEd,
MA education and MSc Child Development courses.
Secondly, the programme seeks to provide practitioner teachers
working in schools with a more systematic academic grounding in
principles that guide teaching-learning processes in elementary
classrooms. This would enable them to address pedagogical problems
encountered in course of teaching, as well as enable them to
engage in wider processes of curriculum design and action
research. The programme would invite support and participation
from the cadre of Academic Support staff at Bodh, working with
teachers working in community based as well as government schools.
The fellowship programme would pair them with trained teachers to
establish processes of mutually complementing paired learning. The
first batch would target to have minimum 10 and maximum 20
fellows.
Operationalisation
The programme would consist of three parts (a) induction to
reinforce the basic principles of quality education as applied in
Bodhshalas, and through quarterly workshops on selected academic
perspectives (b) exposure through placement in other innovative
programmes promoting quality education and (c) application of the
above learning through hands-on experience and action research in
Bodhshalas by the 'teacher-researchers' so developed.
Key outcomes expected from the programme include (a) development
of more reflective teachers with sound academic preparation,
values of non-discrimination and well grounded in practical
application of theoretical principles of quality education (b) it
is expected that at least some of these teachers would stay and
work with Bodh for a reasonable period of time (c) curriculum
development and action research for on-going development of
pedagogical insights (d) development of field-based complements to
existing teacher preparation programmes.
The programme would be guided by the advisory core group and a
Fellowship Coordinator. Its implementation will be managed by a
Senior Fellow and an Organizer. Bodh staff engaged in the rural
and urban programmes would also be drawn upon to support the
programme on specific issues.
The programme would need to establish strong links with academic
organizations to (a) recruit teacher fellows (b) draw upon their
faculty to enrich academic content of the fellowship (c) engage
faculty members to guide and bring objectivity to the research
undertaken by teacher researchers and (d) establish an advisory
panel to guide the ongoing development of the teacher fellowship
programme.
Links would also be established with other projects for placements
(also to identify placement guides), school administrators,
education trusts and Bureaucrats engaged in education issues.
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