On Saturday, exam fever caught up with the Zion Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Selaiyur.
This was, however, not an examination for the students. Their teachers were put through the ringer, made to write two exams to measure their knowledge.
Over the course of the day, they answered questions in English, general knowledge and their subject of specialisation. Based on the evaluation of the answer sheets, the school will prepare a personalised training programme for the teachers, said N. Vijayan, correspondent of the school.
Of late, a number of schools have started evaluation and assessment programmes for their teachers, which in turn will help with student achievement outcomes.
In the past few years, with the introduction of the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation for students under the Samacheer Kalvi syllabus, schools feel there is a need for better teacher training.
“The model we are using in our school will be used by all private schools across the district,” said Mr. Vijayan, adding the programme was meant to ensure all teachers provided quality education and were sound in their fundamental knowledge of the subject.
Mr. Vijayan said the programme was designed to support teachers, and not put them down.
In a similar way, several schools across the city have either hired an external organisation to provide teacher training, or designed a programme themselves.
According to K. Purushothaman of Everwin schools, every three months, their school invites speakers from different parts of the world to share their views on pedagogy. Workshops on a variety of subjects are also conducted once a month.
“To measure the progress in our teachers, we ask parents to send in feedback on different teachers. Based on this feedback, we provide training to teachers,” he said.
A number of agencies also provide teacher training to different schools across the city. K.R. Maalathi from Auuro Services has been conducting school audits.
“The idea is to see what innovative practices the teachers are employing, and see how well they are working with the students,” she said. Teachers need to constantly upgrade their skills, and need suitable support to be able to do that, she said.
According to educationist Mallika Mani, who has been training teachers for over a decade now, the problem is there is very little data on the benefits of training.
“In other countries, there are comprehensive studies that link student performance with teacher training, but here, not many schools have data like that,” she said.
To help improve performance, however, schools will need to provide more support to teachers. “The B.Ed and M.Ed syllabi have not changed to accommodate even simple things like Information and Communications Technology in education and inclusive education. This means teachers will need training in a variety of subjects,” she said, adding this training would have to be continuous, with teachers receiving feedback every step of the way.
