Teachers in learning

EDUCATION: In keeping with the times, teachers are now being trained to make full use of technology.

"We don't need no education," sang Pink Floyd in their hit single. True. We don't. But teachers insist on teaching. And now they're getting a taste of their own medicine.

Government schools and private institutions alike are training their teachers in technology, leadership and entrepreneurship in association with various organisations like Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, Azim Premji Foundation and the Wadhwani Foundation.

Started in 2002, Microsoft's Project Shiksha has impacted over 1.1 lakh teachers in government schools across the country, especially in the rural areas. Technologically the most advanced government schools in the country are the Navodaya Vidyalayas spread all over the country.

H N S Rao, deputy commissioner for academics, Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, says, "We now have the infrastructure required to impart quality education and so we can focus on training our teachers to make full use of the infrastructure." With facilities like the upcoming video conferencing and existing video multicasting in 201 schools of the total 539, the future looks bright.

Besides teaming with Microsoft to impart IT education to its teachers, the schools have also tied up with Intel, which trains principals and administrators in leadership through its Intel Learning Program, Oracle, which trains teachers in using programmes like think.com and thinkquest.com while the Azim Premji Foundation has given content software to the schools.

The schools, in fact, are now training their teachers to use open source software "" free software like Linux Operating System.

While technology seems to be the favourite subject in schools, organisations like the Wadhwani Foundation's National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) are scraping the subject of entrepreneurship in higher education institutions.

Currently working with 164 academic institutions in 12 regions in the country, NEN uses its wide base of board members that include faculty from some of the best institutes in the world, top industrialists and professionals to impart lessons in "How to teach entrepreneurship" to faculty at top notch institutes like Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; Indian Institute of Technology, Bangalore; BITS Pilani; SP Jain, National Law School and many more.

Laura Parkin, executive director, NEN and Wadhwani Foundation explains, "We usually hold three-day lectures and workshops for teachers from across the country, presided by eminent speakers from over the world. They impart techniques and innovative methods of teaching entrepreneurship to the teachers and thus help them develop their own unique style of teaching."

The success of NEN's programme is visible in the number of entrepreneurship programmes that have been launched in numerous institutes in the country.

Quite like students sitting through grilling exams and question-answer sessions, teachers who participate in these programmes have to undergo similar treatment. Corporates often conduct tests and rounds of the schools and institutions where they have invested.

For NEN, their biggest success is the coming Entrepreneurship Week - India, which celebrates the spirit and concept of entrepreneurship via partner institutions that are celebrating in their own way.

Professor Utpal Malik, joint director, Central Institute of Education Technology, NCERT says, "Leveraging public-private partnership for integration of technology in education by first teaching the teachers themselves will drastically improve the pedagogy followed in the country. Plus it helps in sharing the resources between the educational institutions and the corporates."