June 22, 1998

Teachers become the taught in a novel programme.

By Farah Baria

It's probably every child's favourite fantasy. Teachers toiling over worksheets in dingy, sweltering classrooms while their students whizz off for summer vacations. Now, the Maharashtra Government has made it a reality.

This summer, as the pitiless sun glared down like a malevolent eye, 1,70,353 primary school instructors undertook a gruelling 12-day training course called smart-pt, a massive, rigorous, statewide training for primary teachers. If that sounds suspiciously like hard labour -- it is. The aim: to maximise school enrolment, retain potential dropouts and improve the overall quality of education.

The first experiment of its kind in the country, smart-pt got off to a quiet start in January when the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), Pune, quietly picked and groomed 74 teachers based on the recommendation of the state's education officers. These state-level master trainers in turn taught 1,048 district-level resource persons who trained another 10,122 block level resource persons. Next, a total of 4,266 training centres were identified and readied for a series of nine 12-day courses in nine Indian languages. Cost of operation: Rs 10 crore. "Since ours is a pioneering experiment, much of the bill was picked up by the Central Government," explains V.S. Patil, director of SCERT.

On day three at the Indian Education Society's English medium primary school, Dadar, things are very much on schedule. If attendance was mostly 100 per cent, it was hardly surprising. Naughty absentees are severely punished. "They will be denied an 'attendance certificate' which makes them eligible to teach," says master trainer Luciana Pereira flatly. The day starts with a session on joyful learning or the fine -- and virtually unknown -- art of making education fun. Sceptical? Try multiplication tables set to a catchy tune. Or ask students to transform a tedious lesson into a skit. The upshot: greater interaction, in which children are made to feel that the teacher is not miss-know-all. That is followed by a class on competency enrichment where language, mathematics and science syllabi are broken up into graded tasks or "competencies" such as speaking, listening, addition, subtraction, observation and experimentation. "We are trying to move away from an exam-oriented system to the less stressful procedure of evaluating performance in the classroom," says master trainer Annie D'Souza.

By now the "students" are showing signs of wear and when the bell rings for the lunch recess, 419 portly matrons bolt out of their classrooms, giggling like schoolgirls. After lunch, they will learn how to impart value education -- now a compulsory subject -- and such uplifting qualities as patriotism, dignity of labour, gender equality and respect for all religions. "I think we are learning to be more sensitive teachers," says Winifred Fernandes, head of the primary section, Don Bosco School, Matunga.

While most agree with her view, there were rumbling in the ranks: complaints of family vacations that were cut short, non-availability of the promised free tea and rumours that the mandatory compensation of Rs 35 per head per day would be delayed.

It's not the first time that the Maharashtra Government has been in the dock for attempting to revamp the school system. Last year, when Education Minister Sudhir Joshi sought to ban admission tests for nurseries, the move was opposed by hysterical upper-class parents who wanted to retain their monopoly on elite institutions. But smart-pt is less likely to brew a controversy. "When teachers are skilled, children are happy to go to school," says IES Principal Jayalakshmy Raman. Who can argue with that?

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