District Institutes of Education and Training - Teacher Education

District Institutes of Education and Training: A Comparative Study in Three Indian States
were not structured to elicit formative feedback, since they tended to be closed
questions (e.g. were you satisfied with this training, yes or no?).
5.2.4 Development of ‘outreach’ trainers
While some training programmes are done directly in DIETs by DIET staff, others
are delivered at block level by Master Trainers who have taken training from the
DIET. Since design of a programme does not take place at the DIET level, each
programme involves at least some level of cascade training, where DIET staff
attend training at the top of the cascade (the State level) to learn about the
package, and return to their institute to deliver it directly, or train others (Master
Trainers and Resource Persons) to pass it to teachers. Normally, the head of the
relevant DIET branch to the training attends the apex level training. The issue of
the DIET staff ’s competencies in their particular branch was discussed in chapter
3; so where there was weakness in this respect, that weakness would be present at
the top level of the training cascade.
In the two DPEP Districts, the DIET used some Block and Cluster Resource
Centre staff as resource people, but the DPEP was responsible for the development
of their capacities, and those staff had their primary allegiance to the body that set
them up – DPEP – rather than the DIET.
In Masuda, Indore and Surat DIETs, Master Trainers were regular visitors to the
DIET, and all of these DIETs worked hard to develop them; there was less
proaction about this in Udaipur DIET. Criteria for selection of Master Trainers
varied across the DIETs: for Indore and Surat DIETs, since the Master Trainer role
was additional to regular teaching duties, criteria were not fixed, but an important
one was willingness. In Indore DIET, for example, a staff member who was very
concerned to develop the Master Trainers said ‘Criteria … enthusiastic persons,
who are active, who are self-willed, who are developed in their work, this is one
criterion… and those who can do activities without any hesitation… and then,
their own personal problems should not get in the way of their work’.
The Surat DIET Principal had personally visited Cluster Resource Centres as they
were set up and encouraged the new leaders, aware of the transition they were
making:
In the beginning… when classes were going on for 7 days I visited all blocks a
minimum of twice during the training. There were around 32 classes. During
my second visit I used to tell them if you still have any problem let me know
and I will come a third time. Let me know if you need anything, if there is any
work, any other problem, I will be coming tomorrow or the day after so if there
is any thing which needs to be brought I will do it. They were never made to
98 DFID