The three year project for professional development of secondary school teacher and a teacher resource centre in Trivandrum was implemented by the Vakkom Moulavi Foundation Trust from October 2008 to June 2011 with major support from Sir Ratan Tata Trust.
The main objectives of the project are:
- To provide opportunities for the professional development of teachers, to improve their mastery of subject content, pedagogical skills and the learning needs of children and adolescents, and thereby improve classroom teaching practice and student achievement.
- To introduce teachers and schools to new technologies available for teaching.
- To create a storehouse of educational materials and teaching aids, reference materials that can be used by schools and teachers to improve their teaching, with support provided by resource persons.
The project has four main components:
- Partnership with selected schools (around 18 in total) to plan and implement programs for teacher development in two subjects.
- Teachers’ professional development content enrichment courses at VMFT Resource Centre.
- Establishing a professional Teacher Resource Centre at VMFT.
- Fellowship to M.Ed. students.
The subjects chosen for in-school teacher development and the content enrichment courses are English and Mathematics after conducting a survey among the teachers.
The Teacher Resource Centre, a major outcome of the project, will continue to be maintained by VMFT after the project ends. The TRC will work to improve the quality of secondary school education throughout Kerala, through exposure of educators to international trends in secondary education and pedagogy, use of technology and application of research findings to classroom teaching. The TRC will assist schools with textual and electronic/web-based teaching-learning materials, training programs, workshops and support for developing school resource centres.
