related paper - Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE, CULTURE AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT, VOLUME 6
and its well known drawbacks like ‘transmission
loss’ and distortion of the message as it filters down
to successively lower levels in the hierarchy of
training—is popular on account of the reach it
provides (Chand and Amin-Choudhury 2004: 49-
50). However, the culture that underpins this model
does not encourage the abstraction of relevant and
effective practices from the grassroots, ultimately
resulting in the system’s inability to develop a
learning culture within itself. Alternatives that value
peer-learning, sharing of experiences, validation of
outstanding practices and development of learning
material for use by teachers themselves, may be
placed at the other end of the spectrum of teacher
development approaches. But if public systems are
to develop a learning culture that builds on these
elements, they need to develop competence in combining
top-down approaches with participatory
learning methodologies (ibid.: 25-28) and learn to
promote a “network space for teacher development”
(Chand and Amin-Choudhury 2005: 286-288). This
paper is concerned with the latter imperative. We
first describe the concept of an “educational innovation
bank” (EI Bank)—a clearing house for the work
of outstanding primary school teachers in the public
schooling system—and its implementation over a
two and a half year period (2003-06). 1 We then apply
theories that link innovation, knowledge and networking,
to draw implications for the use of the model by
administrators in the public system.
A Clearinghouse for Educational
Innovations
The clearinghouse concept is built on an alternative
teacher development philosophy that seeks to draw
on the best practices among teachers working in
state-run and funded primary schools. It was conceptualized
as a network of (a) outstanding teachers who
have implemented innovations with their own resources
in order to overcome specific problems
primarily concerned with classroom instructional
quality, out-of-school learning among children, retaining
children in school, enabling access to
schooling for all children; (b) users most likely to
benefit from these innovations (teachers working in
state rural schools, teacher training institutions and
educational administrators); (c) other interested
stakeholders like policy makers.
The development of the EI Bank involves scouting
out, and validation, of educational innovations
evolved by outstanding teachers, and making them
available in usable forms to other stakeholders. The
EI Bank thus aims at offering an alternative solutionaugmenting
teacher development approach, which
can be spread and implemented by policy implementers
and teacher training institutions in their own
contexts. For the purposes of developing this EI
Bank, an innovation was defined as an educational
practice (method, learning tool or aid, or set of actions)
which has actually been tried in practice and
has achieved certain educational goals that the
teacher set in his or her specific socio-economic
context. That is, an innovation should have had the
following characteristics: a novel and/or unique response
to a problem or need; a stage of initial development
by the teacher, followed by a stage of trial
and monitoring (implementation); an evaluation,
followed by continuation or modification; and finally,
a set of results. ‘Effectiveness’ is understood to mean
that the innovation has resulted in identifiable positive
improvement in line with the educational objectives
of the teacher. The specific criteria that have
been used to characterize innovations for purposes
of screening or rating have been: the novelty and
uniqueness dimensions, the context in which the
activity was undertaken (community/school background),
the scope of any single activity in terms of
number of educational aspects affected/ number of
children who benefited, and the spread-effect of the
innovation. This understanding of educational innovation
conforms to the general understanding of innovation
in literature (for instance, Rogers 1995;
Carayannis et al. 2003).
Preliminary Search for Innovations
This crucial first step involved the following: the
drafting of an announcement and its dissemination
through official channels; contacting teacher associations,
non-governmental organizations and departmental
functionaries for nominations; and the polling
of colleges of education and teacher training institutions.
The announcement described the purpose of
the exercise, the conditions that teachers should have
fulfilled (innovated on their own, developed their
own ideas, problem solving, and achievement of
educational goals), the guidelines/ format for writing
up one’s work, and the procedures for screening.
‘Partners’—interested individuals, teacher trainers
or bureaucrats—were also involved at this stage so
that the initial rudimentary networks that emerged
had some non-teacher participation as well.
Screening of Innovations
This time-consuming step involved the study of the
teachers’ written accounts for academic value and
1 The EI Bank initiative, over the period 2003-06, has dealt with about 2400 innovative teachers. The work of 120 of these teachers has
been converted into case studies, available in printed form as well on CDs. Summaries of the work of these teachers, and other short-listed
teachers, are being organized in the form of a searchable electronic database.