CEQUE: A case study of Indian Teacher Experiences with Teacher Coaching

• In Event: Teacher education and educator support in South Asia

Proposal

At 1.5 million schools and 248 million students (UNESCO, 2021), India has one of the largest educational systems in the world. Whereas it has achieved 100% access to education, quality and equitable education remain a challenge. Among 5th-grade students, over half cannot read a simple grade 2 text; nearly three-fourths cannot do simple operations like division . Equitable and quality student learning is important to the Indian government and non-governmental organizations (New Education Policy 2021).

The quality of teaching is essential to achieving student learning outcomes in Sustainable Development Goal 4 (United Nations, 2015). Many scholars have suggested that student achievement will not improve without changes in teacher knowledge or classroom practice are needed to improve student achievement (Cohen & Hill, 1998; Kennedy, 2016; Scher & O’Reilly, 2009).

In India, teachers are poorly trained: Of the workforce’s 9.4 million teachers, about 4.5% of teachers who teach primary grades do not possess an academic or teaching degree (UNESCO, 2021). In 2019, barely 18% of primary school teachers and 30% of secondary school teachers cleared the annual Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET), which tests teachers’ eligibility for the profession. Most teachers follow rote methods of teaching, eschewing student-centered methods that are proven to be better at improving student learning (Bhattacharjee et al., 2011, cited in UNESCO (2021, p.81).

Despite the policy articulation for improving the quality of learning and teachers in India, there are limited resources for improving teacher quality. IndiaSpend, in 2019 reported that funding for teacher training had declined by 87% over 6 years; in 2018-19, the budget spend on teacher training was just 2% of the annual budget of the Samgra Shiksha Abhiyan, the country-wide initiative for improving the quality of education. Historically, teacher professional development (TPD) has been delivered through workshops and seminars, with a one-size-fits-all approach. While these methods are widely prevalent globally, they have proven to be ineffective in transforming teaching/ pedagogy in the classroom.

Teacher coaching, on the other hand, offers a more personalised and individualised approach to TPD and has demonstrated immense potential for informing and transforming teachers’ pedagogy (Desimone & Pak, 2017).The impact of coaching on teacher pedagogy and student outcomes has been positive in the US and globally (Biancarosa et al., 2010, Carlisle et al., 2011, Matsumura, 2010 et al.; & Teemant, 2014, Piper and Zuilkowski, 2015, Piper et al., 2014, Zuilkowski & Piper, 2017, Piper et al., 2018). Teacher coaching, though, is resource-intensive, costly, and consequently challenging to scale. Scaling coaching is particularly difficult in under-resourced contexts in the global south. In such contexts, generally, ICT solutions are also unviable due to poor connectivity and teachers’ discomfort with using technology.

In response to these challenges, over the past 10 years, The Center for Equity and Universal Education (CEQUE), a non-profit has been working with government school teachers in western India. Its initiatives have focused on shifting teaching from traditional teacher-centric pedagogies to ones that are sensitive to students’ diverse learning needs, focus on their inclusion and participation and incorporate enquiry and application-driven teaching methodologies. In 2016, CEQUE created its flagship Teacher Innovation Program (TIP) which provides training and coaching to government school teachers over a multi-year time frame. Over time, it has evolved a replicable and geographically scalable TPD model, which is district-based and decentralised, allowing for localised delivery of training and coaching support in a country as diverse as India. Its model is adaptative and responds to local needs of teachers. The covid-related lockdowns and school closures are a good example, of this, where teachers and coaches worked closely to create bespoke solutions for children to remain in the fold of learning.

Key features of the TIP model include:

1. Partner with district public school officials to select and implement the program a geographic ‘block’ of 100 schools as ‘innovation lab’ schools. Set up a local team to manage the program in the district.
2. Train and coach of the program is results-driven approximately 300 teachers in these schools for a sustained period of three years.
3. Impact teacher and student learning.
4. Sustain learning in subsequent years through forming teacher learning circles or communities of practice and offering online TPD programs

Most of CEQUE’s intervention has focused on rural India and is now expanding to urban areas and areas with indigenous populations. CEQUE has been experimenting with a localized, adapted approach with an emphasis on multilingual instruction, developing listening and speaking and pre-literacy skills even in primary grades, and incorporating art as an integral part of the teaching-learning process.

Teacher voices are often missing in the scaling of TPD and coaching. The central focus of scaling studies tends to focus on student learning outcomes. The study has two main foci: first, to document and understand how teacher coaching has transformed teachers and coaches in their behaviors, beliefs, and being. Second, to understand how CEQUE’s model has been adapted to different geographic locations to improve equity and quality. The overarching research question for the study is: How does a TPD model of teacher coaching adapt to the local needs of teachers teaching in marginalized communities? Through teacher and teacher coach interviews, observation data, and teacher reflections, this study highlights how teacher coaching in marginalized communities in India has changed teacher and teacher coach behaviors, beliefs, and being.

Authors

• Peggy Kong, University of Utah

• Anju Saigal, Centre for Equity and Quality in Universal Education