District Institutes of Education and Training - Teacher Education

District Institutes of Education and Training: A Comparative Study in Three Indian States
7.5.4 Keeping up the impetus
The project team provided all the physical resources necessary to undertake the
work that was initiated. As a result, there were no delays which would have
contributed to a loss of momentum, as happened with the SCERT/equivalent
research agendas. Where official permission was required, the project team
facilitated rapid processing of the necessary paper work. Human resources in the
shape of a project researcher on site and regular visits by experienced facilitators
(senior project team members and external resource people) were also on hand to
work with DIETs and help them through any patches of uncertainty in an
environment where raising questions was encouraged.
Indore DIET hosted, with funding from the research project, a two day conference
on educational management and competencies where the speakers were drawn
from a local university, University of Manchester visiting staff, and project team
members.
7.5.5 Learning to be reflexive
The action research projects contributed to a level of DIET empowerment as they
were actively involved in work directed towards understanding some of the
constraints they experienced. The workshops, in bringing staff together to discuss
issues, generated a discourse about education that went beyond constraints, and
set DIET staff onto a track of reflexivity that had not been characteristic before the
collaborations. A Master Trainer who attended a project workshop at Indore DIET
also commented on his new understanding of action research as a process of
constant reflection on practice:
The second thing you said is that action research keeps going on - that was not
in my mind at all. Mainly we do research and results come, but here it is the next
step for a second one. […]. This is something which never stops. In the faculty
of DIET, it’s about us and teachers, us and teachers […] I am block coordinator
for Gurujis - so I will be there, Gurujis will be there, them and me, me and them,
time after time. So it’s my gain if I can find out how much change I could bring
in them. We would have documentation of how much improvement has come
because of us, and what we did to get it. This is necessary. I liked this point in
today’s workshop. I came to know action research is not about a degree, this is
for us, and only us (MP/IND after Indore workshop)
With the DIET staff, the analysis stage of the action research projects, in particular,
gave opportunities to talk through issues that teachers were raising, and to focus
through supportive prompting on directions for action or further reflection that
the responses indicated. Table 7.2 gives an indication of issues that teachers raised,
and samples of prompts made to Dhar DIET staff:
DFID 149