District Institutes of Education and Training - Teacher Education

District Institutes of Education and Training: A Comparative Study in Three Indian States
Therefore the in-charge neither takes it out nor gives it to others’. No attempt was
made to elaborate on this, suggest a possible solution, establish how many teachers
had tried to use Operation Blackboard materials and to what effect, or relate the
information in the module to teachers’ practices.
On the fifth day, one teacher left after the first period, and getting her attendance
registered. The DIET lecturer did not seem to notice. When the researcher asked
her why, she said: ‘What's the use of getting bored here? I have attended one class
of each subject and now I know these training programmes are of no use’. She said
she had come because ‘My HM sent me here. I did not want to come. Now I know
about DIET programmes and will not come again. My HM had said that you have
not got training so you go. When I asked him what if I do not like it, he said tell
them I told you to go away if you did not like the training’.
In conversation with the researcher at the end of that day, three teachers raised the
issue of the training’s lack of relevance:
T19 Today he told us about symbols. These are useful for middle schools or
secondary schools. You do not teach symbols in primary classes that do
not even know how to write words properly.
T25 These are all theoretical things. We take this as it is useful for us but not
for children. We cannot do this in villages.
T33 They should come to the tribal areas, understand the problems. The
students are irregular. What can you teach in such a situation?
T25 These training programmes are only done for TA/DA and budget
utilisation.
The language lecturer’s perceptions of what he does, and what he actually does,
were at odds with each other:
In SOPT training we stress methods. We take up a subject and demonstrate
how it can be taught and prepare TLAs. We stress on students’ participation this
we also stress during our training as well. […] We really discuss more than train
teachers. Teachers come for seven days for training and we try to involve them
as much as possible (RAJ/UDR TT09 June 00).
This approach also raises issues about the quality of the State-level preparation,
since this lecturer had had orientation training to SOPT at the State level.
Dictation of existing materials seems particularly indefensible; yet it was observed
on a number of occasions in this and other DIETs. Similarly, in Indore DIET, a
lecturer in non-formal education at the District Resource Unit said:
We also conduct training programmes in NFE centres. There is a pamphlet of
instructions to inspectors. Everything is given in that instruction book.
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