Introduction
What is NISHTHA?
- NISHTHA stands for the National Initiative for School Heads’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement.
- It is a Government initiative to revive education in India at the elementary level, through an overhaul of the teaching protocols, methods, and strategies. This will translate into an enormous improvement of the quality of education imparted in the Indian Classrooms.
- It is to be made possible through a national level teachers’ training program – the largest of its kind in the world.
NISHTHA
- NISHTHA aims to train more than 42 lakh teachers in the country.
- At its core, the program is looking forward to sharpening the skills of the nation’s teachers in order to ensure a new age holistic instruction of the pupils under them.
- It is an integrated training program of principals and/or institution heads to enable them to act as Key Academic Support.
- NISHTHA was launched on the [latex]{21}{st}[/latex] of August 2019, by the HRD ministry.
- In the words of Union Human Resource Minister Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal present at the launch, through NISHTHA “The teachers will get awareness and develop their skills on various aspects related to learning outcomes, competency-based learning and testing, learner-centered pedagogy, school safety, and security, personal-social qualities…”
Aim
The aim is to build the capacities of a large scale number of teachers – of around 42 Lakhs - under the program, a three- tier demarcation of which is as follows:
- Teachers are to be equipped with the skills needed to foster critical thinking in their students.
- With this objective in mind, the teachers in this program shall receive training to imbibe in them a sense of modern-day awareness – needed to identify core competency points in each individual student, and thereby help him achieve his potential.
| Training Objectives of NISHTHA – Impart skills on |
|---|
| Learning Outcomes. |
| Inclusive Education |
| Environmental Concerns. |
| Personal-social Qualities |
| School Leadership Qualities |
| School Safety and Security |
| Learner-centered Pedagogy |
| Health and well-being, including Yoga. |
| Competency-Based Learning and Testing. |
| ICT in teaching-learning, including Artificial Intelligence. |
| Pre-school, Pre-vocational and School-Based Assessment |
| Initiatives in School Education including Library, Eco-Club, Youth Club, Kitchen Garden |
The effort to revitalize the educational landscape shall be made through the convergence of multi-disciplinary and multi-departmental efforts.
The methodology to be followed for the training module will follow the following hierarchy:
Features
Features of the training program:
- States and UTs can contextualize their modules, keeping in mind the core topics and expected outcomes.
- The in-built continuous feedback mechanism
- Training Need and Impact Analysis
- Pre and Post Training
Components
What are the components of the NISHTHA program?
Launched simultaneously by the HRD ministry are the various modes of the training program:
NISHTHA website
The easy –on-the –eye UI and bright interface Consists of:
The Website also encourages discussions and feedback mechanism through Forums on the individual topics:
- Inclusive Education
- School Environment
- Art Integrated Learning
- Initiatives in School Education
- School-Based Assessment
- ICT in Education
- Environmental Studies
- Mathematics
- Indian Languages
- Science
- Social Sciences
- School Leadership
- Pre-school Education
- Pre-vocational Education
- Health and Physical Education and Sports
- Gender Issues
The Modules are as follows:
- NCERT has developed a Mobile App and a Learning Management System. The mobile App was launched along with the Program.
- The Learning Management System has been based on MOODLE – Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment.
- The LMS shall be used for registration of resource Persons and Teachers, Dissemination of Resources, Training Gap and Impact Analysis, monitoring, Mentoring and Measuring the progress online.
Selection
How are the Key Resource Persons selected?
A KRP must cover all of the following, but not limited to points:
-
1. They must be a regular employee with more than 5 years of teaching experience at the elementary or secondary stage.
2. They should have experience in providing training for at least 2 years.
3. KRPs should be selected from every subject area to cover all grounds within a single SRG.
4. KRPS ought to be capable of Active Listening, Participatory Engagement, and Public Speaking.