District Institutes of Education and Training - Teacher Education

District Institutes of Education and Training: A Comparative Study in Three Indian States
programme is conducted here, all cooperate and associate with it with the
feeling that “we have to do it”…in the last two years, a very nice system has
developed’ (August 1999).
Such proaction was not visible in Dhar DIET, where the DPEP had duplicated the
DIET’s role – although teachers wished DIET staff to visit them (see chapter 7)
or in Udaipur DIET, with the exception of the only two members of staff who
were frequently in the field.
6.4 DIETs and the Resource Centres
6.4.1 Making links
As noted earlier, DIETs can only be effective if they work through Resource
Centres, although those were developed independently of the DIET. The official
link is made by appointing one member of the DIET staff to each block as a link
person, to attend meetings held there. In both Masuda and Surat DIETs, the
intention to manage this was compromised to some extent by severe staff
shortages but both had ongoing links with their Cluster Resource Centres through
extensive networks. In both DPEP Districts, Block Resource Centre co-ordinators
reported that the DIET nominee rarely put in an appearance at such meetings.
DIET staff themselves did not dispute this, but cited their own busy schedules as
the reason for not attending, although more compelling explanations are found in
the way the DPEP had operated historically in both of those Districts. The
effectiveness of Indore DIET’s links related to the interest of an individual staff
member, which was variable. Udaipur DIET had only two members of staff who
were regularly seen in the field, and no Cluster network. Overall, then, in four of
the six sample DIETs, the DIET was operating in isolation from the sub-District
structures because staff members did not consistently attend meetings to receive
feedback or provide input.
Because the DIET’s other functions were limited, interviews with Resource Centre
staff across the sites revealed that they viewed the DIET primarily as a training
centre. The functions and potential support the DIET could give from its other
branches, such as Educational Technology or Curriculum and Materials
Development, were not well understood by these staff. Discussions with teachers,
and even some Cluster staff, in the two DPEP Districts revealed that they could
not differentiate between the functions of the Block Resource Centre and the
DIET, other than that the DIET was the designated training institute. This
indicates that the DIETs’ institutional identity was very much less holistic than the
policy intended, and points to a need to develop a more integrated joint strategy
between the DIET and its Resource Centres.
124 DFID