Role of SCERT in Professional Development of teachers

State Council for Educational and Training (SCERT) is an apex body, responsible for quality education in the state. It is an autonomous body entrusted with planning, implementation and evaluation of all academic programs from pre-school to higher secondary levels.

KEY FUNCTIONS OF SCERT

WORKSHOPS

In workshops, the approach is more practical than a seminar. All the participants participate actively and make a significant contribution. A workshop is organized to consider intensively practical problems of class room teaching like lesson planning, curriculum construction etc.

WORKSHOP FOR PREPARATION OF SAMPLE QUESTION PAPER AND GUIDELINE

A workshop for the development of sample question paper and guideline for question paper setters for all the subjects

TRAINING COORDINATION

DTE (Department of Teacher Education)‟s areas of action are organizing teacher training programmes (both in-service and pre-service) for the TTI‟s and DIET‟s.

HIGHER SECONDARY SRG TRAINING

SRG Training for Higher Secondary teachers ,The topic generally discussed in all subjects was guidance and counseling, career development, and how to conduct cluster effectively and ICT-based model classroom.

NTEC/PRE-PRIMARY TEACHER

It is a comprehensive course envisaged for equipping aspirants to become new millennium Pre-school/ Nursery teacher. This is a systematic course dealing with major areas of child developments such as Elementary education-Sociological and philosophical foundations, Child development and psychology, health, Practical and training.

PROGRAMMES

GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING

Future teachers should be equipped to systematically plan and organize school guidance and counseling programmes. Hence it was decided to review the pre-service teacher education curriculum at the primary level for the guidance and counseling components. The objectives were to examine, review, and analyze the current curriculum and to identify curriculum redundancies and make suggestions for updating curriculum based on the needs of students or bench marks.

COMPREHENSIVE TEACHER TRANSFORMATION PROGRAMME

To enhance quality of teachers, empowerment programme on novel ideas, transactional modalities and development are essential. In order to satisfy these needs, all the teachers of the state from primary to secondary level will be trained for two months in 3 phases.

ENGLISH THEATRE CLUBS IN KERALA SCHOOLS

A proposal by SCERT to the state government is that every school in the state will have an English Theatre Club soon. The club is being planned to give an opportunity to teachers and students to watch and appreciate good English films. This is as the SCERT has termed it, to equip learners and teachers with good English skills.

RESEARCH

SCERT is responsible for research on various topics related to school education like curriculum development, training needs assessment for teachers, etc.

PREPARATION OF SCHOOL CURRICULUM AND TEXTBOOKS

Responsible for preparation, evaluation and revision of curriculum and textbooks, preparation of handbooks for teachers in eight languages and different school subjects for all classes (class I to XII)

PROJECTS

Department of Educational Technology is working in association with IT@ School project, SIET etc. It gives academic leadership for the training of IT Master Trainers and School IT Coordinators to implement IT education in schools, using computers as a tool for acquiring and using information and knowledge. Development of story board for resource CDs for various subjects in high school classes ii another contribution.

OTHER FUNCTIONS

LIBRARY: SCERT maintains a modern research and reference library with high emphasis on education and its allied subjects. The mission is to build up a relevant collection of information materials and timely dissemination of information to educators, educationalists, researchers, students and other stakeholders in the field of education.

PREPARATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS: SCERT provide Teachers Handbook and Resource C.D. for Special schools. For students having hearing disabilities, visual learning is more helpful for them. Hence SCERT made teachers handbook and resource C.D. containing visualization of all subjects in accordance with the special school curriculum.

REFRESHER COURSE: It is an important in –service training for teachers. The main purpose is to enable the teachers to keep abreast of the latest developments in their subjects as in theory and practices of education. It includes refresher course, orientation & training programs for teachers, headmasters, DEOs &DDEs on curriculum-related topics.

CONFERENCES: It can be organized on subjects of practical interest, such as revision of school curriculum, selection of text books, and report of successful educational experiments.

STUDY GROUPS: Teachers of different subjects can form study group which may meet once a week.

SCHOOL PROGRAMMES: This includes club meeting, faculty meeting, study circles, exhibitions in the school, experimental projects, film shows, demonstration lessons etc.

STUDY OF PROFESSIONAL WRITING: Teachers can study various publications of SCERT, NCERT, Extension service departments of colleges to acquaint with the latest research findings.

MISCELLANEOUS PROGRAMMES: This includes educational tours, visits to places of educational importance and teacher exchange programmes can be organized for professional growth of teachers.