District Institutes of Education and Training - Teacher Education

District Institutes of Education and Training: A Comparative Study in Three Indian States
Rajpur schools, and of teachers more widely, that the role of the DIET is a training
institute. Pre- and in-service training are discussed in chapters 4 and 5 respectively,
and this section focuses on the remaining branches of the DIETs.
Planning and management (P&M)
Planning and Management is seen as one of the most prestigious DIET branches
and occupied by the most senior or most respected staff in all DIETs. However,
none of them had any formal training in planning and management, or experience
beyond what they had gained as former upper secondary teachers.
In addition to providing direct training in planning and management (for example
to school Principals), this branch should help other branches with their planning
and management to help the DIET run smoothly. This integration was absent in
Udaipur and Dhar DIETs, but happened by default in Masuda and Surat DIETs
because of short staffing. In Udaipur DIET, P&M would collect data about
training programmes and compile them, but did not work with each branch to
assist them in using those data; each branch would prepare its own plan
independently. P&M should also maintain a teacher’s profile of the district which
is continuously updated and modified, and is an important planning instrument;
its effectiveness is shaped by relationships with the Education Department which
is responsible for deputing teachers for training (see chapter 6). P& M also collects
data and information from the field about enrolment, retention, drop-out, and so
on, to be shared with the relevant administrative offices. Use of these figures was
made by Masuda DIET, via Lok Jumbish, and by Surat DIET, but in other DIETs
these were not seen to be issues of the DIET’s concern.
All P&M staff acknowledged a need for further training in this area.
District Resource Unit (DRU)
The DRU is intended as a resource centre for the District, reaching out via nonformal
education, early childhood education, and collaboration with the Social
Welfare and Tribal departments. Dhar DIET had one incumbent of its DRU. He
was very active with the Madhya Pradesh Alternative Schooling / Educational
Guarantee Scheme programmes and frequently called on in an individual capacity
by DPEP as a resource person. At the other end of the scale, the DRU of Udaipur
DIET was mainly concerned with training teachers in how to integrate population
education into regular teaching: staff reported that these programmes have failed
to make any impact: ‘Two percent of the formal educational budget is spent on
NFE and the output is also 2%’. Observation of their training programmes
revealed a lecture-based approach to imparting the values of the module designers
to teachers.
DFID 61