Since the Government of Telangana made English medium compulsory for all government schools from the academic year 2022-23, teachers are undergoing training via the English Language Enrichment Course (ELEC) programme being taught by faculty members of Azim Premji University and executed by Bengaluru-based TriByte Technologies.
To brush up on the English proficiency of the teachers, the Telangana government engaged Azim Premji University to execute an English Language Training programme. In turn, they enlisted TriByte Technologies' help to offer the blended course to teachers.
It all began with 51,441 primary school teachers and 28,933 higher secondary teachers across all the 33 districts of the Telugu-speaking state. Over nine weeks which included two weeks of in-person and seven weeks of online self-paced learning, each day, teachers spend three hours pouring over 5,50,000 activities. And through it all, they are guided by mentors when it comes to assignments and tasks before they step into the next module.
When it comes to the pedagogy, it is activity-based, self-study and self-paced learning. All the activities are based on the subjects that are taught. For example, a Physics teacher would be engaged with activities on topics like Life in Space, Air Pollution or questions about astronauts. Discussions in English among teachers were a common activity too.
Speaking about teachers and them adapting to the blended learning course, Seethaprasad Mandikel, Founder & CEO, TriByte Technologies shares that post-pandemic, teachers are quite familiar with technology. "We had issues like flaky internet or hardware issues, but these were addressed and managed Key Resource Persons (KRP), that is, the teacher volunteers," he shares.
Organising teachers into batches based on their pedagogical needs plus, preferences with regards to districts and mandals, was initially difficult for TriByte and so was assigning the right mentor. "With over 7,000 live sessions in a week, we needed to do some optimisation where live sessions, as well as activities, could happen smoothly and simultaneously," shares Seethaprasad Mandikel.
Making analytics with regards to each teacher and the various metrics like attendance, participation and activities completion available to all stakeholders was easier said then done. But these challenges were overcome and Phase 1 of the programme successfully concluded in March 2022 and now, they are ready to begin Phase 2 set to begin next month.
