“Nishta” through “DIKSHA”: A Complete Dose “The Feedback”

Two and a half months ago Govt. of India in collaboration with NCERT laid foundation of a maiden online training course for all teachers, masters across country namely NISHTHA : National Initiative for School Heads’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement. NISHTHA was a capacity building program for “Improving Quality of School Education through Integrated Teacher Training”. It aimed to build competencies among all the teachers and school principals at the elementary stage. The functionaries (at the state, district, block, cluster level) were trained in an integrated manner on learning outcomes, school based assessment, learner – centered pedagogy, new initiatives in education, addressing diverse needs of children through multiple pedagogies, etc. This was being organized by constituting National Resource Groups (NRGs) and State Resource Groups (SRGs) at the National and the State level who trained 42 lakhs teachers subsequently. A robust portal/Management Information System (MIS) for delivery of the training, monitoring and support mechanism was being infused with this capacity building initiative. Keeping in view the COVID-19 pandemic situation, it was planned to organise SRG and Teachers training in online mode. The first online training for the SRGs of state of Andhra Pradesh was launched on 16 July, 2020. The main expected outcomes from NISHTHA were:
Improvement in learning outcomes of the students.
Creation of an enabling and enriching inclusive classroom environment
Teachers become alert and responsive to the social, emotional and psychological needs of students as first level counselors.
Teachers become trained to use Art as pedagogy leading to increased creativity and innovation among students.
Teachers to become trained to develop and strengthen personal-social qualities of students for their holistic development.
Creation of healthy and safe school environment.
Integration of ICT in teaching learning and assessment.
Developing stress free School Based Assessment focused on development of learning competencies.
Teachers to adopt Activity Based Learning and move away from rote learning to competency based learning.
Teachers and School heads become aware of new initiatives in school education.
Transformation of the Heads of Schools into providing academic and administrative leadership for the schools for fostering new initiatives.Nishtha through Diksha was a complete package although there are some days left for the completion of this course.It nurtured in every aspects.The main reasons why each and every teacher was asked to join are innumerate however some best reasons I am mentioning are as under :
Effective strategies of learning based on evidence statistically proven to make a difference
Useful insights on how to ensure learning takes place
Implement the ideas quickly
See how much of what you already do is effective.
How the brain learns and the importance of the learning cycle
Questioning strategies and activating prior knowledge
Busting some of the myths!
You can spend time embedding new techniques into your teaching which are statistically proven to make a difference
You can get useful insights on how to ensure learning takes place. You can also implement the ideas quickly
You will learn about things that you can do quickly and easily to improve your teaching.
NISHTA provides you with a profound understanding of the connections between how the brain synthesizes learning and more importantly the session identifies some of the more effective strategies of learning based on evidence.
Big big thanks goes to The Union Human Resource Development Minister that launched ‘National Initiative for School Heads and Teachers Holistic Advancement (NISHTHA)’, a national mission to improve learning outcomes at the elementary level.
NISHTHA Website, Training Modules, Primer Booklet and a Mobile App were also launched by the Minister.
NISHTHA was the largest teachers’ training programme of its kind in the world.
Objective: To motivate and equip teachers to encourage and foster critical thinking in students.
Teachers are now fully equipped and are having awareness and some how had developed their skills on various aspects related to:
Learning Outcomes, Competency-Based learning and Testing, Learner-centered Pedagogy, School Safety and Security, Personal-social qualities,
Inclusive Education,
ICT in teaching-learning including Artificial Intelligence,
Health and well-being including yoga,
Initiatives in School Education including library, eco-club, youth club, kitchen garden,
School Leadership qualities,
Environmental Concerns,
Pre-school, Pre-vocational Education and School-Based assessment.
Aim: To build the capacities of around 42 lakh participants,
Covering 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) and District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs),
Block Resource Coordinators and Cluster Resource Coordinators in all States and UTs.
Implementation: Training was being conducted directly by 33120 Key Resource Persons (KRPs) and State Resource Persons (SRP) identified by the State and UTs, who in turn trained 120 National Resource Persons identified from National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), etc.
States and UTs were being provided an option to contextualize the training modules and use their own material and resource persons also, keeping in view the core topics and expected outcomes of NISHTHA.
The prominent features of the programme were activity based modules including in-built continuous feedback mechanism, online monitoring and support system, training need and impact analysis (Pre and Post training).
A Mobile App and Learning Management System (LMS) based on MOODLE (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) was being developed by NCERT.
LMS was beinh used for registration of Resource Persons and Teachers, dissemination of resources, training gap and impact analysis, monitoring, mentoring and measuring the progress online.
In J&K, in order to make this prog successful many technicians were appointed in order to overcome the hurdles a teacher can face. In this context state level, District level and zonal level tech. Admins were also nominated and by the grace of Almighy everyone gave his /her best to achieve the best results. I felt this couse wonderful and I would like to thank Ministry of Education especially NCERT for such a great step and I wish such online courses are adopted in future also even if corona is not there. As we should be acquainted and fully aware about new trends and techniques in education sector.
(The author a teacher is presently posted in Education Zone Mawar in North Kashmir’s Kupwara district. Views are his own)
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