Barefoot Teacher Training

A Project Of Loreto MWILoreto Day School, Sealdah

122 AJC Bose RoadKolkata – 14

Email – loretomwi.in@gmail.com

Project Background and Concept: The seed was sown in 1988 when Sr. Cyril was approached by teachers of an adivasi group from

Midnapur District seeking practical advice on teaching methods that would be effective in their own environment. Sr. Cyril took up the

challenge and with the active involvement of the teachers and students of Loreto Sealdah, she not only arranged practical lessons in teaching

but also developed a set of teaching aids, which served the double purpose of providing them with ideas for evolving their own tools and

using local materials. Concept: People need only feet to walk; shoes are a luxury. Given the

millions of children who need to be educated in India, a highly theoretical two- years teachers training course is an unrealistic luxury.

Our goal is to give the essential inputs through a very thorough practical exposure in the relatively shorter period we keep the trainees.

So our training does not include the ‘shoe’.

The training is designed for those young/ middle aged or older people who have not had the opportunity to complete Class X and who therefore cannot qualify for a full time teacher training course. Such people are more likely to remain in their village or slum areas and unfortunately their education is often not put to use. Yet such persons are precious to our programme, for given a very basic teacher training exposure they can be trained to be very competent teachers at primary level. They understand the local situation and are willing to teach in remote areas to which the ‘qualified’ teachers will not go. The key word in the course is ‘Creativity. The trainee must learn, not just to reproduce methods and teaching aids but to interact with them, make them her own and then use them as stepping stones to develop her/ his own way of doing things using his/ her own local materials. Thus the course prepares teacher to face the difficulties inherent in her own situation.

Aims & Objective: This programme involves more than providing education at low

cost to indigent people. It aims to restore to communities the right to educate their children in a way that suits them and to tap their initiative for it instead of depending on others. It is an attempt to correct the narrow specialization that has come to be associated with learning and the high costs that make education/ schooling prohibitive for those who need it the most.

As India spends only 3% of its GNP on education, poor children get a raw deal and the education they receive (passively) is divorced from the realities of their lives. The prevailing system of rote learning is in question in the country- thus the BTTP is poised at a critical moment of change.

Its objective is to create a new generation of trained teachers from among the deprived communities who are encouraged to create teaching aids from material available in their surroundings and taught their use. The trainees are being encouraged to interact with their own communities and mobilize and resources like land and labour, rather than merely being teachers after a building comes up.

Basic requirement for participants:

They should be able to read and write fluently in the language in which they intend to teach

They should be open to new ideas they should have a deep love for their

community and their children that they are willing to work for them

Venue of training There are two approaches: the first and surely the

more effective one is to have trainees in a good school where teachers can demonstrate, share and provide them practice and friendly criticism, show them the aids to be made and plan with them. Done on a 3 days exposure in each class the total load on any teacher comes to 3 days every 3 months.

This is the most effective as it enables the trainees to actually see the methods in use, how the children react etc and so there is no time spent on lengthy description.

In the second approach our teachers go out places and the advantage of such courses is

that many more potential teachers can be enrolled, and much more local materials are used. On the negative side, the entire burden of demonstration every method and carrying the entire course is rather heavy for the teachers, and the atmosphere of the school, the mixing with the regular teachers and so on is an experience they miss.

Weighing the two approaches, having the course attached to a school has several distinct advantages provided the primary school is using child- centred methods and has well motivated teachers.

However going out to the field is an excellent experience for the urban teachers and really essential as at least a one time experience for those giving the training. A further advantage is the way in which the course can be shown to be tailor made for such a simple surroundings and the way in which the environment become the child’s text book.

The training schedule:

a typical day for a trainee includes classroom observation of primary school teachers in the morning. Afternoons are spent in dialoging with these teachers focusing specifically on methodology. Evenings are devoted to working on teaching aids, and in follow-up questions and discussions. At the end of each day trainees evaluate the day’s training.

Present Status:

: more than 10,000 teachers trained from all over India. More than 150 TOTs trained and more than 4, 00,000 children affected till date.

Future Plan

This training programme is not unknown to the Government any more. The incorporation of this system is in process in the government schools and hopefully it will soon be translated into official acceptance. It is through this system that India will ever have a real chance of ensuring that the fundamental “Right to Education” is translated from paper to practice.