Prashikshak Teacher Education Portal for Strengthening DIETs-Empowering teachers

Prashikshak Teacher Education Portal: Prashikshak’, the teacher education portal for District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs) has been launched by the Hon’ble Minister of Human Resource and Development, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani on 30th June 2020 at Hall No. 4 Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.

The objective of Prashikshak is to help DIETs make informed decisions about their institutes, compare the performance of their institute against other DIETs in the state/country as well as help aspiring teachers make informed decisions about which institute to join. Prashikshak Portal has been developed by the Ministry of HRD in collaboration with Central Square Foundation.

The major users of Prashikshak will be Pre-service teacher educators, DIET principals and faculty, Policy makers at District, State Government and National Level, and the General public.  Thus, Prashikshak is a unique IT Initiative taken up by the HRD Ministry which would entail the establishment of a strong monitoring mechanism with a database of teacher education institutes with all relevant performance indicators.

DIETs were created under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme on Teacher Education (CSSTE) for offering pre-service and in-service teacher training programmes for Government elementary school teachers. Currently, there are 588 DIETs functioning in the country with an intake of 98052 students and sanctioned faculty strength of 12647.

The event will be attended by State Ministers of Education, State Education Secretaries, State Director of SCERTs, Principal DIETs, senior policy makers and representatives of Autonomous Bodies such as NCTE, NCERT and NUEPA.

About the Prashikshak Portal:
Prashikshak is an open online platform for collecting and reporting data from all District Institute of Education and Training (DIETs) in India. By facilitating online reporting of data, this portal will allow for the teacher education system to be strengthened through tracking of performance data for all DIETs.

Currently, the portal collects 800 data points yearly from all 646 DIETs. In the future, the portal will expand to cover all 18,839 government TEIs-including IASEs, CTEs and SCERTs-as well as private TEIs.

Prashikshak has two main components- an input module and output module. The input module is where TEIs submit data about their faculty, facilities and more. The output module contains dashboards and reports for various government functionaries.

Vision for the Prashikshak Portal:
Prashikshak will ensure that all DIETs are training high-quality teachers and provide a tool for decision-makers to strengthen and rationalize the capacity of the system.

Demand for the Prashikshak Portal:
MHRD recognizes the need to help the teacher education system. Specifically, Article 12.2 of an MHRD report called for the creation of a strong monitoring mechanism, which would contain a database of teacher education institutes with all relevant performance indicators. This is in line with global best practices, since many other countries (including the U.S. and the U.K.) have created similar portals on teacher education.

After performing research on global best practices, MHRD collaborated with stakeholders (including heads of Teacher Education Institutes, academics, and other experts in teacher education) to determine the requirements and indicators for the portal’s reporting mechanism. MHRD created this portal to share data on DIETs and track their performance.

Objective of the Prashikshak Portal:
Prashikshak allows for improved collection of data and a better understanding of teacher education in India. In doing so, Prashikshak facilitates insightful analysis to strengthen the teacher education scheme, allows states to identify areas where resources can to be targeted, and equips aspiring teachers with the information they need to make informed decisions about their education.

Value of the Prashikshak Portal:
Teachers are the key to a quality education system. As early as 1986, the National Policy on Education (NPE) said that the cornerstone of educational reconstruction is an improvement in the status and professional competence of teachers. Similarly, the 2009 Right to Education (RTE) emphasized the central role of teachers in reforming education. This assessment is supported by research. A seminal report by Mckinsey & Company showed that the main driver of variation in student learning across countries is teacher quality.

The Prashikshak portal will strengthen the teacher education system in four key ways:

1. Equip government officials with data for decision-making
This portal will allow government officials to strengthen the teacher education system by providing clear and transparent data, which officials will use to analyse the system’s strengths and weaknesses, identify areas where resources can be targeted, and support low-performing institutes

2. Equip government officials with data for decision-making
This portal will allow government officials to strengthen the teacher education system by providing clear and transparent data, which officials will use to analyse the system’s strengths and weaknesses, identify areas where resources can be targeted, and support low-performing institutes

3. Support innovation in teacher education
India has a vast population of extraordinary researchers, entrepreneurs, and innovators. This portal provides all of these people with the data they need to develop innovative ideas for strengthening the teacher education system.

4. Increase transparency
MHRD is releasing this data to the public to help people better understand the teacher education system, increase accountability among DIETs, and support better decision-making through data.

Check more details from here