In May 2016, we partnered with the Directorate of School Education, Kashmir region (DSEK) to coach and empower select government school teachers and Head Masters with skills and mindsets that set them on a path of transformation. In it’s pilot phase, the program was designed to support 10 schools in Srinagar and Bandipore district. The core philosophy of the program was to strengthen instructional and school leadership and transform schools into centers of learning excellence. The model was designed to support through workshops and one-on-one coaching. During our workshop and coaching sessions, we focused on the power of adapting a positive mindset as instructional leaders, pedagogy tools that can tackle learning differentiation and enable them to identify & take ownership of their own growth as teachers and school leaders.
In September 2016, Kashmir witnessed continuous violence that escalated to a two month long curfew in most parts of the state. Amidst the turmoil, our access and training with our Taleem teachers was also impacted. However, we were determined to continue our work with the government teachers, and collaborated with Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan (SSA), to design and implement teacher training modules for master trainers across the state. This unique opportunity gave us valuable insights to the existing teacher development programs run by SSA, and the scope for transformation and modification for deeper impact. These workshops with SSA gave us a chance to build a model that can be scaled within the existing system. We worked with the government trainers across the state, to constantly evolve and refresh these training modules beyond the workshop sessions, and extend our support to monitoring and implementation on the ground. These trainers in turn impact nearly 80,000 teachers across Jammu & Kashmir.
In 2017, we renewed our engagement on a short-term basis with SSA as an implementation partner for in-service teacher training and refresher modules to be conducted across the state. Our team worked with the government teachers and trainers to constantly evolve and refresh these training modules beyond the workshop sessions, and extend our support to monitoring and implementation on the ground. The objective was also to test the teacher training space as a potential leverage points for scaling the school transformation process. Majority of teachers shared their positive feedback on the specific tools and skills taught during these training workshops.
