Over the last 100 years, many factors, including a relatively healthy political party process, robust mass media, deeper influence of social reform movement and better access to education, played an important role in achieving better social development indicators. This has created a relatively empowered middle class society (in comparison to other states of India) with better social and political consciousness. The investment in education and health in the 1950s to 1980s created a competent and skilled labour force that could negotiate in the global market. Kerala is one of the first and most successful states in India in globalizing its relatively skilled or semiskilled labour force, with waves of migrant workers to Gulf countries and other parts of the world. The export of labour force towards the development of secondary and tertiary sector to different parts of the world and the consequent expatriated income of migrant labourers created a new wave of economic growth in Kerala from the late 1980s and early 1990s.

While the growth in expatriated income created new demands in service sector, it also paradoxically contributed to the decline of primary sector- particularly that of agriculture. In spite very significant growth in service sector (particularly consumer, health, education, housing, transport, travel and allied areas), there was no corollary growth in the capacity of infrastructure. The migration of skilled force also contributed towards cumulative bran-drain from all sectors, including that of political process. This has created the paradox of the development of Kerala: higher socio-economic development, high per-capita income, less infrastructural facilities, conservative social values, better gender indicators along with less women’s empowerment, and a civil society divided on the basis of party political affiliation and community organizations.

Kerala society jumped from semi- feudalism to consumerism via communist/socialist aspirations – all within a div of sixty years. Hence, our own social and political culture became a strange and confusing mix of feudal- left- and consumerist and conservative- all in one! We also jumped from a predominantly agriculture – (primary sector economy) – to service sector (Tertiary sector) economy within a span of 40 years. We have moved rather fast from a rural based joint-family or networked-family social settings to nuclear and post-nuclear settings. A very significant section of our people moved from lower-middle class subsistence economy culture to a surplus bank balance – fuelled by expatriated income

More than ten percent of the people of Kerala now live and work outside the state. The migration culture of Malayalies in the last seventy years and the money and ideas they brought back to Kerala played a very key role in influencing the society and politics more ways than what is being generally being acknowledged. From the nineties onwards, Kerala society is more in a post-nuclear family mode-where the members of a family are dispersed far and wide- and often virtually connected- or networked: rather than sharing a life or space. This also means a society of lots of elderly people and young people and nothing in between

From the 1990s, there was also significant deficit in the quality of youth leadership both in political and social process of Kerala. The expatriated income, the tremendous growth of consumer market and the decline of the quality of higher education contributed towards a new vulgarisation of politics, society and culture. During the last ten years, there have been significant social and political churning in Kerala, resulting in new kinds of identity based assertions, increasing criminalization and violence in society and party-politicisation of issues to do with economic development of Kerala. There are many symptoms of a larger issue of social, cultural and political transition of Kerala in the context of new consumer materialism and neoconservative values and sectarianism – that came to define our society, culture and politics in multiple ways.

The Training Coordinator will publicise the training activities, contact the target groups and organise and evaluate the programme.  The candidate shall preferably be young  having excellent writing and communication ability and willingnes to travel. Mail your CV with a passport photograph and 2 references to trcvmft@gmail.com or call 9400238094

The first workshop on IT for Teaching was held on 27 August 2011 at VMFT for the members of the Teacher Resource Centre.  Shri. N.T.Nair, Chief Editor, Executive Knowledge Lines inaugurated the programme.  Dr. K. Soman, Director, VMFT  welcomed and Dr.C.G.Sukumaran Nair  and Mr.A.Suhair addressed the participants . 16 High School Teachers from various schools in Trivandrum and Kollam Districts received hands-on training in computers supported by theory class.

From the inaugural address at the Workshop on Information technology for teaching held at  VMFT on 27^th August 2011

The project’s approach to teacher professional development was new in Kerala. State governments in India regularly organize teacher training programs for government school teachers, particularly when syllabi are revised and new textbooks introduced. The Kerala school syllabus is undergoing a major revision and teachers regularly attend cluster level workshops and training sessions to enhance their knowledge.

A new approach

The new approach was based on lessons from research in India:  that effective professional development for teachers must be focused on what they have to teach, deepen their understanding of the theoretical basis for new teaching strategies, provide opportunities to practice what they have learnt, encourage them to reflect on their own teaching, to use resources independently, to provide feedback and to be mentored.

Three inter-linked modalities were adopted:

(i)            A partnership with selected schools: Each year, about 10 schools were selected, and Head Masters nominated teachers from Mathematics and English (subjects identified as priority by HMs) to attend 50 hours of training spread over several months. The program included centre-based training, followed up with continuing support in the school/or , and follow-up centre-based training.  HMs were also expected to follow up on how teachers improved teaching practice in the classroom

(ii)           Week-long professional development programs:  Under this modality, individual teachers (Maths and English) from different schools registered for the 35 hour program, which was delivered in one week during the summer holidays.

(iii)          Teacher Resource Centre: A TRC was established at the VMFT, to create a storehouse of educational materials, teaching aids and reference materials which teachers could consult to prepare for lessons, projects, assessments etc. The TRC would also organize workshops / seminars on specific topics, such as IT training, or project-based learning.

The specific objectives were to enable teachers to improve their mastery of subject content, their  pedagogical skills and their knowledge of adolescent learning  and thereby improve their teaching practice and student achievement. Teachers were also familiarized with new technologies and new resource materials. As part of the needs assessment done to develop the content, teachers strongly expressed the need to focus the program on the Kerala syllabus and specific topics/ lessons that they found difficult.  Teachers from government, aided and unaided schools were eligible to participate.

Challenges

The challenges were many. The first obstacle was the self-perception of teachers. Many did not view themselves as professionals, in the same way as engineers or doctors are viewed.  Many could not explain the specific professional knowledge that distinguishes a high school physics teacher from a person who works as a physicist. The second was that many teachers simply do not have the tools or skills to develop themselves as professionals. In a needs assessment survey done for an earlier pilot project, no teacher reported reading any additional materials related to their subject (other than the textbook), using any reference materials (such as encyclopaedias, resource books), using the internet or any computer technology etc.

Teachers are currently bombarded with new terms such as “activity-based learning” “ child-centred approaches”, “problem-solving approaches”, but they lack a deep understanding of what needs to change in their practice (and why). And they often lack the confidence to speak openly about what they do not understand.

The first year of the project was a learning year. Activities were focused on developing the partnership with schools, a new concept for schools and teachers.  The active involvement of HMs in facilitating and following up on teachers’ professional development is rare, especially in government and aided schools – this is often left to the centralized teacher training programs which are the same for all schools and teachers. Further, the content of the training did not focus on the issues and materials of direct relevance to teachers.

Successes and Limitations

The second year (2010) marked a turn around in the school partnership program. Learning from experience, VMFT with inputs from SRTT, changed the content of the program. High quality Resource Persons made a critical difference to the quality of the program and the interactions with teachers. Teachers were given an orientation course in using basic computer skills. Additional reading materials were provided and teachers were encouraged to use self-evaluation forms.  Unlike the first year, attendance was very high in all the sessions.  There were three follow-up visits to the schools.

This led to the successful holding of the week long professional development programs in May 2011. Both the Mathematics and English programs were oversubscribed. Teachers who had participated in the school partnership program recommended the summer program to their colleagues. As a result, many teachers became members of the Teacher Resource Centre.

Although the project set up a rigorous monitoring and evaluation framework, which allowed adjustments to take place in the content of the program, the implementation period was too short to observe any impact on classroom teaching.  Many teachers and HMs are still reluctant to introduce observation of classroom teaching, by peers, as an integral part of professional development. The project did not envisage or finance testing of students. As a result, the project team had to rely on self-reported feedback by teachers and HMs on what they had learnt and/or implemented.

This is the first in a series of articles on this Project. VMFT will continue to publish further articles on this.