Teachers on course to become leaders

JHUNJHUNU: Rakesh Chaudhari, headmaster of a government primary school in a non-descript village of Jhunjhunu district in Rajasthan, is a happy man now. A year back, his school was plagued by low attendance of teachers.

Now teachers are self-motivated and take their classes regularly paying individual attention to every student. This turnaround is a result of a 3-year part time Principal Leadership Development Programme, which Mr. Chaudhari has been undertaking as part of pilot project by Kaivalya Education Foundation and Rajasthan government.

There are 100 other headmasters like him in Jhunjhunu districts which are experiencing qualitative changes in primary education in the state after getting enrolled for this course.

Kaivalya Education Foundation founder Aditya Natraj told ET that the course is aimed at training and transforming rural school principals and help them turnaround schools. ���Currently, government school principals in India are not trained. The senior most teacher becomes the principal with no specific training to handle the additional responsibilities of running an institution, coaching teachers, and managing relationships with parents and the community. The training develops professional and personal leadership skills besides triggering the internal motivation,��� he said.

The Principal Leadership Development Programme combines workshops with well-supported in-school projects and on-the-job coaching and mentoring.

Principals are trained to build consensus around a clear vision for the school and coach teachers to dramatically improve learning and engage with gender, caste and other social issues of rural communities.

���We have tied up with IIM-Ahmedabad and Jaipur based Bodh Shiksha Samiti to develop curriculum in the area of organisational change and pedagogy. The 120-day-course spread over 3 years promises to develop leader out of a teacher and certify principals to create a benchmark for quality in school leadership. ���The first batch of 100 headmasters will pass out in 2011 and we plan to transform around 1000 by 2014. There is a long way to go as there are around 78000 rural primary schools in Rajasthan with over 700000 in the country,��� Mr Natraj said.