50 Bihar teachers get training in British Council project

PATNA: A convocation programme for 50 teacher educators (TEs), who were trained in the third phase of a programme called 'Bihar Language Initiative for Secondary Schools' (BLISS), was held here on Tuesday. The programme is a joint effort of the state government and British Council, which has so far trained 160 TEs in the last two years.
The programme is aimed at spreading English teaching in government schools and making it more interesting for students.
Addressing the program, state primary education director Rahul Singh called upon the TEs to spread the skills they have imbibed during the training
He said the BLISS is a secondary school project and the department is also in talks with the British Council for extending the programme to the middle schools as well and the modalities should be finalized within a month," he said.
BLISS project director Michael Connolly asked the TEs to get involved in various projects and be a part of the continuous professional development (CPD) for teachers. "Book clubs, short term programmes, lesson planning contest and conferences were just few of the initiative through which the TEs became associated with CPD," Connolly said, adding a new training module for Bihar teachers has also been developed by the British Council. The module was launched at the convocation programme.
Two TEs, who were a part of the third batch, also shared their learning experiences during the convocation programme. The TEs were also awarded their certificates for successfully completing their 135 hours training programme in the last nine months.
British Council programme director Gill Caldicott, who also addressed the trainees, said, "Over the last two years, we have worked towards establishing core groups of TEs across the state who will act as a teacher training cadre."