District Institutes of Education and Training - Teacher Education

District Institutes of Education and Training: A Comparative Study in Three Indian States
do not have upper primary classes. With the exception of one 3rd Std boy and a
4th Std. girl, all the 250 children enrolled here are from communities who are
entitled under the Indian Constitution to the special protection of the state for
their advancement (Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, and ‘Bakshi Panch’
groups).
Table 2.1: Gaamru school enrolment 2000
Std. Boys Girls Total
1st 26 19 45
2nd 14 10 24
3rd 16 12 28
4th 16 13 29
5th 16 8 24
6th 29 15 44
7th 35 21 56
Total 152 98 250
The age for enrolment in Std. 1 is six, but children ranged from 4-10. None had
had any pre-schooling. Although 45 children were registered in the first year, the
number usually present varied from 18 to 27. Some of the ‘missing’ children had
begun to attend a new small school opened near their home; others had joined
parents on seasonal migration. The social make-up of the teaching force did not
reflect that of the community it served: only two of the teachers were from the
same communities as the children.
The Year One teacher is a woman called Veena, in her late thirties. After her
marriage, she opted for Gaamru because it is a roadside school – a common
teacher preference because, as the principal commented, ‘it is quicker and easier to
leave as soon as time is over’. The new textbooks had been the core Year One
material for the last two years in the District and although Veena had been
teaching Year One for that time, she had not attended the new textbook training
that should have included all teachers.
Classroom environment: unequal partnerships
Gaamru school was included in the UNICEF-sponsored Joyful Learning scheme,
so the first year classroom is decorated with sums, stories, animals and birds;
a child-level blackboard strip runs round the room. There are a few charts made
by the teacher last year during a teaching-learning materials making competition;
some rough clay beads, made and threaded by children, hang on the window.
The blackboard strip is rarely used, unlike the main blackboard which the teacher
constantly uses; and there is one board on which the letter cards can be
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