Despite the intensity with which digitisation is hitting us, it can be agreed that teachers still remain an important pillar of education. And to stay that way, they must constantly be enriched so that they can enrich another important pillar of education — students. But at some point, Anjali Jain understood that sometimes, teachers are not particularly motivated to invest efforts in enriching themselves. So Jain decided to join forces with Ramya Venkataraman, who had founded the Centre for Teacher Accreditation (CENTA), a social enterprise in education.
Now four years old, CENTA's flagship programme Teaching Professionals’ Olympiad (TPO) has started to resonate with the education system. You could even think of TPO as a national exam for all teaching professionals — BEd or DEd students, school teachers, principals and others. They can sign up for it and as a next step, take the CENTA Certification, which will help with future employment as it certifies the skills of the teaching professionals. "Eventually, we want CENTA certification and micro credentials to become the leading benchmark of what a good teacher's competency should look like," states Jain.
With registrations now open for TPO 2018, Jain informs us that they are going international, as it is being introduced in the UAE from this year. "In a neutral manner, we recognise teachers and help them shine," says the business graduate from IIM Calcutta. But if it's an exam, there is bound to be competition. So, how do they manage to remain neutral? "Not only do we give multiple recognition through the platform, when the results are declared, the marks are not disclosed to anyone but the participant," explains Jain, who is the Founder and Director of CENTA.
After completion of the exam, CENTA will provide individual detailed reports, highlighting areas of improvement. Jain also informs us that this year, they are celebrating birthdays of famous educationist like Vikram Sarabhai and with regards to the celebration, they're offering a reduction in the registration fee. And now, let's get to the best part — the rewards. "Two performing English teachers will be sent to Oxford University for a prestigious training programme. Plus, there are more than 100 cash prizes to be won, ranging from one lakh to `5,000," she says and reminds us that the registration deadline is October 31, 2018 while the exam will be conducted on December 8, 2018.
For more on them, click on centa.org
