SILENT REVOLUTION IN GOVT PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN DEGANGA BLOCK

Swanirvar’s intervension  in SSK schools in Deganga Block:  

In 2004, Swanirvar gave major drive to improve the quality teaching in Govt Primary schools.Our initial objective was to identify the innovative teachers and giving trainings to them so that after that there would be a network of innovative teachers. These teachers would impart trainings in future. With our consistent efforts some of the teachers became very efficient and started doing many experiments in their schools.

In August, 2011 some of the innovative teachers who got regular inputs from us and 3 SSK supervisors met with our staff trainer – Prosanto and Gopal. They requested them for training cum workshop on English teaching. They also added that all the teachers met together four times on a month in their monthly meetings, most of the time they attended that meeting and there had administrative discussions but there was no discussion on teachers training and quality improvement of schools. These teachers also persuaded their union-leaders to draw the attentions of the higher officials. On September, 2011 Gopal and Prosnato sit with the – BDO, Deganga, Shiksha Karmadhakya (people’s representative in charge of Education), Samity Education Officer, 3 SSK Super visors, Teacher’s- Union leaders and it was decided that all the SSK teachers would get trainings from us and also Swanirvar would do regular follow up and monitoring in those schools. That English Training was given to the 60 SSK Teachers on 15^th September, 2011 and 28^th September, 2011 for the classes I &II.

After these trainings our trainers Julkalam , Gopal and others went for follow up visits. Their main intension was to observe the changes in Classroom management, trainings, pedagogy etc after the trainings.

We found that there were some problems:
  1..In the training session 60 participants were attending from the 60 SSK schools but this huge no of trainees were unable to do any – groups works (due to lack of space in the training hall), we also gave trainings in a participatory mode with 20-30 teachers but here we failed to do it in participatory mode. Gradually the session becoming lecture based which was against our objective.
2.All the 60 schools had on an average 4 teachers per schools and it was decided that one teacher from each school would take training and the trained teacher would gave trainings to his colleagues. But most teachers demanded for training from Swanirvar trainers rather than their colleagues.
3.There was a Teaching Learning Materials (TLMs) making session in the training and the trainees made a few TLMs which were became very popular in their schools. Other teachers who did not attended the training programme demanded for TLMs from their SSK supervisors.
4. Deganga is one of the backward blocks and consists of 13 Gram Panchayats. SSK teachers also demanded for area wise trainings so that they get more time in the session.  
5.  Some of them also asked for a strong follow ups and TLM workshops. 

6. After that there was a review meeting was held in the month of October, 12. In that meeting, some resolutions were taken jointly by the Education Nodal officials, SSK supervisors, SSK teacher’s Union Leaders and Swanirvar Training team. These were as follows:
A.Training would be zone wise and the block was divided into 9 zones.
B. All the SSK teachers would take part in the trainings.  
C. There would be subject wise trainings- 1Subject/day and 6 hrs per day.
D. Training would held on either Sunday or Govt. holiday.  
E. Training cost – Food and Transport would bourn by the teachers. They could request local Panchayat to arrange their meal.
F. Along with 3 SSK supervisors, Julkalam Ali of Swanirvar would do the necessary follow ups.
G.  As per the demand from the schools: there would be TLM making workshops in each zone.
H.Some of the best SSK schools would follow Swanirvar models and they will introduce – Parents meeting, Parents workshop, children committee, Art and Craft, Rakhi and Special day’s celebrations in their schools.

Training given to SSK teachers

From November, 2012 to till date, 14 trainings had been organized by Swanirvar in which 187 teachers from 48 schools has participated. They had been given hand-held trainings on Mathematics and Bengali for class-I and II. These would help more than 3000 students. Beside these subjective trainings, TLM workshops were organized with the 95 teachers of 24 SSK schools.  

Reported by,

Primary Training Team, Swanirvar

28th Feb, 2013