To fulfill the long-standing vision of Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) to achieve academic excellence in Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRSs), 120 EMRS teachers and principals from 3 states completed a 40 days’ NISHTHA-National initiative for School Heads’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement Program, a national flagship program of NCERT on 19^th June 2021.  The capacity building program is  aimed to build competencies among teachers and school principals and Improving Quality of School Education through Integrated Teacher Training.   

MoTA has recently collaborated with National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), which a national apex education body for several programmatic initiatives and interventions, for conducting such programs across  350 functional EMRS schools across the country.

This was the first batch of 120 EMRS teachers and principals from 3 states, namely Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The participants were capacitated on 18 holistic and comprehensive modules covering different aspects of education such as Learning Outcomes, Assessment Practices, learner-centered pedagogy, Art-Integrated Learning, Gender Equality, Covid Response of Schools, POCSO Act, Pedagogy of Science, Mathematics, Language, Social Science Subjects etc.The training was conducted in an online mode, adopting a blended approach.  While the course material, activities, projects were shared on NISHTHA online portal, the live-interactive sessions with esteemed faculty members from NCERT were held through VC platform. An amalgam of strategies were adopted by National Resource Group (NRG) members of NCERT using narratives, stories, quizzes, and puzzles etc. as part of the training methodologies. The training impact could be evidently deciphered from the participants’ feedback to rigorously plan more such in-service training programs in the times to come.

 Minster of Tribal Affairs, Sh. Arjun Munda, congratulated the teachers and said that the NISHTHA Training program for EMRS teachers affirms the National Education Policy (NEP-2020) recommendation of “Providing In-service continuous professional development… as these will be strengthened and substantially expanded to meet the needs of enriched teaching-learning processes for quality education.”

 Minister of State, Ms Renuka Singh Saruta in her message applauded efforts of Ministry in collaborating with NCERT and devisinga plan to build a pool of Key Resource Persons from amongst all the batches of NISHTHA programs to be conducted in the coming months. The internal EMRS resources of teachersand principals shall be the torch bearers for achieving academic excellence in EMRS school education.

NISHTHA Program is part of various Capacity Building Training programs undertaken By Ministry.  From 25th May to 5th June, 2021 a 10 days "Unbox Tinkering - ATL Teacher Training Program" was also organized in coordination with Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, IBM and Learning Links foundation for 60 EMRS Heads, Teachers and ATL incharges from 12 States. During the program, there were series of discussion and simulation sessions which allowed open learning and exchange of ideas on wide ranging topics like computational thinking, Arduino Basics-Coding to Design Thinking etc.

……

NB/UD