Making of Master Trainers by ORMAS-CEMCA-ASD Education Collaboration
Mar 22, 2017, Bhubaneswar – On March 21, the phase 1 of the project titled “Making of Master Trainers” funded by CEMCA was declared successful when 46 out of the 71 vocational trainers trained in the intervention were felicitated and presented the International Trainers’ Assessors’ Course (ITAC) certificate. CEMCA undertook this pilot in collaboration with Odisha Rural development Marketing Society (ORMAS), the State Implementing Agency (SIA) of Deen Dayal Upadhyay – Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY), a Placement Linked Training Programme (PLTP) run by Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD). CEMCA engaged the services of Australian Skill Development (ASD) Education Pvt. Ltd. represented by Mr. Senthil Kumar, CEO, for carrying out this work. ASD Education Pvt. Ltd. is the Indian office of the Australian Training company called “Reach for Training”. They are also NSDC partners in India and have aligned their training curriculum to National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF).
The course commenced as planned on the 9th of January 2017. Batch 1 consisted of 26 participants, Batch 2 of 22 and Batch 3 of 23 vocational trainers. These trainers belong to various Project Implementing Agencies (PIAs) or Development Partners of ORMAS.
The training of 10 days was split into three parts of 3 days, 3 days and 4 days interspersed with a week’s break in between where the trainers went back to their place of work and implemented their learning in live classroom environment with real learners. They produced evidences of better engagement with students as a result of better pedagogy learnt during the intervention. These were being monitored and documented. The trainers were being mentored through groups made on WhatsApp.
Ms. Anuradha Prusty, an ITAC certified and highly experienced trainer was engaged by ASD Education Pvt. Ltd. as a Master Trainer. Ms. Niharika Reddy was also engaged as a trainer. Admirable coordination, planning and support was provided by Mr. Sree Charan, Operations Head. Mr. Sujeet Nishank from ORMAS team was the Project Manager and Coordinator. Ms. Sanjogita Mishra, PO Skills, CEMCA provided her inputs related to transforming classroom environment to Activity Based Learning process.
The entire cost of infrastructure, logistics, travel, boarding and lodging of the participating trainee-trainers and ASD team was borne by ORMAS while CEMCA funded the cost of training, assessment and certification of the trainee-trainers. Of the 46 certified about 30 trainers will be taken into phase 2 of “Making of Master Trainers” where they will impart this training to 1000 trainee-trainers. These 30 trainers will be mentored to make the transition from being a trainer to a Master Trainer while 1000 vocational trainers will get trained and certified in the process by ASD Education Pvt. Ltd. The benefit of the better quality of learning will then be passed on to the end learner from rural Odisha.
CEMCA has also undertaken the project of creating contextualized training content related to platform/pedagogical skills and will make the same available through multiple media platforms under an open license of CC-BY-SA. This content will be freely available for all vocational trainers to improve the teaching-learning process in their class by engaging better with the students.
On March 21, 2017 Dr. Shahid Rasool, Director CEMCA, emphasized on the need for improving the quality of vocational training by creating better quality trainers. This intervention addresses multiple issues, like, improving quality of learning, creating more trainers and increasing the motivation of the vocational trainers.
Shri P. J. Nath, IAS, State Mission Director, ORMAS has been very supportive and has been a very dynamic leader by pioneering this intervention. This is the first of its kind in India. Sri B.N. Das, Executive Director, ORMAS recognizes “Vocational Trainers” as the pivot on which Substance and Scale can be achieved in the Skill Mission of India. He has left no stone unturned to make DDU-GKY Odisha the “model” implementation of the scheme, so much so, that other states and schemes may adopt their best practices.
