Diksha - National Teacher Platform

In India, there are over 10 million teachers. The diversity and complexity of student background and learning levels in an Indian classroom cannot be overstated―every one of our teachers has to navigate this every day. Over the past several years many state and central government initiatives have been attempting to strengthen the capacity of teachers so that they are better able to deliver meaningful instruction to help students achieve their full potential. It is now time to consider implementing solutions, initiatives and innovations at scale so as to positively impact the professional lives of all teachers in the country. Teachers should have easy access to teaching and learning resources, and opportunities to develop professionally, if they have to fulfill their central role in the education of our children.

National Teacher Platform (NTP) branded as "Diksha" is an initiative of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. It is a state-of-the-art platform built to host Open Educational Resources (OER) and tools for Teachers in Schools, Teacher Educators in Teacher Education Institutes (TEIs) and Student Teachers in TEIs. It is built considering the whole teacher’s life cycle - from the time student teachers enroll in TEIs to after they retire as teachers.

What does the platform provide

NTP envisages to provide:

• Teacher training courses (example - training on learning outcomes, CCE, etc.)
• Teaching resources such as lesson plans, concept videos, worksheets, mapped to curriculum
• Assessments for teachers, to find out their strengths and areas of improvement

Teachers will be able to access this material offline on their smartphones, tablets and other devices anytime and anywhere. Material will be contextualised to local languages as well as mapped to the curriculum.

Scope of the platform

The NTP will cater to teachers from all stages of school education including pre-primary, primary, upper primary, secondary and senior secondary. All institutions, groups and individuals catering to the above can be enrolled as members of the platform, and can contribute to the creation, curation and use of resources on the platform.

Expected benefits

By building the National Teacher Platform (NTP), the MHRD envisions following benefits:

• Teachers can access relevant personalised professional development training anytime and anywhere
• Teachers in Schools can use the curriculum-linked resources to prepare for class or use them to teach in the class, while Teacher Educators in TEIs can use it to deliver blended training
• Student Teachers in TEIs and contractual Teachers will be able to take courses on the NTP to prepare for the TET and/or get certified
• Cluster & Block Resource Personnel can use standardised observation tools on the NTP to provide need-based coaching support to teachers and do continuous training-needs analysis
• NTP infrastructure shared amongst many states will avoid duplication of efforts and save costs
• Teachers will have access to their own personalised workspace where they can plan and track their progress including courses completed, performance in tests etc.

To know more about the Strategy and Approach of NTP, click here.

Source : DIKSHA