Delhi govt launches programme for development of teachers

NEWDELHI: Delhi education minister, Manish Sisodia, launched the Teacher Development Coordinator (TDC) programme on Tuesday at Thyagaraj Stadium.

Earlier this year, the minister had written a letter to all government teachers, outlining new initiatives in teacher training, which would include a ‘teacher development coordinator’ programme.

In the letter, he said that the programme has been instituted after the success of the mentor teacher initiative that the Delhi government had run earlier.

“We had one mentor teacher for every five schools, and this was not enough. Now there will be a teacher development coordinator at every school,” said Atishi Marlena, the advisor to the education minister.

There are 1,029 government schools in Delhi, and a teacher has been identified in most of these institutes for the post.

Working in tandem with the mentor teachers, the teacher development coordinators will be guided by their predecessors and will soon take over the more general roles that the mentors played earlier; such as pedagogy.

“The mentor teachers will soon start focussing on their specialist roles, and will help by sharing their subject expertise. By the next academic session, in April, this transition should be complete,” said Marlena.

“The government believes that a senior teacher in the role of Teacher Development Coordinator can create a platform for peer learning among the teachers and they would be able to explore new ideas and processes of learning,” reads a statement released by the administration.