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A group of school children in a classroom in India discuss their work
Teachers get access to the Open University’s online educational resources and practical strategies to use in their classrooms. Photograph: Open University
Teachers get access to the Open University’s online educational resources and practical strategies to use in their classrooms. Photograph: Open University

International projects category: award winner and runners up

This article is more than 7 years old

The Open University has offered teacher training across seven states in India using online resources

Winner: The Open University

Project: TESS-India

India faces an acute teacher recruitment crisis. One in six teaching positions in government schools is empty – altogether, that’s a shortage of a million teachers across the country.

The Open University’s TESS-India (teacher education through school-based support in India) project aims to meet fill this gap by training more teachers using high-quality online resources. Teachers get access to educational resources, practical strategies to use in their classrooms, and the massive open online course (known as Mooc) called enhancing teacher education through open educational resources. The Mooc is a six-week task-based online course which combines support through the course forums and social media with face-to-face contact sessions.

TESS was developed in partnership with state bodies, teacher education institutions and NGOs. TESS-India activity does not follow a template; but takes different shapes and focus in each region according to local context.

Following the initial phase of the project, the OU selected Save the Children India as a partner, based partly on their extensive delivery infrastructure across seventeen Indian states. The Mooc has been accessed by 33,448 participants, with a completion rate of over 40% (compared with a global average of 14%). The project was initially funded by aid from the UK government, but has since secured funding from Save the Children India.

Runner up: Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

Project: Concrete Utopias in Dharavi

Dharavi is infamously known as the largest slum in India. The settlement – which was given world visibility by Danny Boyle’s film Slumdog Millionaire – is home to some 1.5 million people, and only one square mile in size.

Selina Busby, course leader in applied theatre MA at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, and her students have been working annually for the past seven years with an NGO in Mumbai and alongside a collection of local, Indian artists and practitioners on a project to improve English language skills and use theatre to create intercultural dialogue.

In June 2016, Busby began a new project collaborating with a local school in Dharavi. The school caters for 381 local children aged three to six. The teachers at the school are women from the local Dharavi community, who are given support and in-house training. They aim to teach the children English, as they see this as a “career defining path” through which they will have access to job opportunities and improved life chances.

Throughout June, the team facilitated workshops for 20 of the young women employed as teachers at the school, and helped them develop their English language skills. Creative interactive sessions using songs, drama and dance were also held – with the teachers encouraged to take these tools back to their classrooms and use them with their own students.

Through work with the school’s team of educators, Busby’s methods are now used with the young students.

Runner up: University of Nottingham

Project: UK-China Creative Economy Talent Building

The International Creative Economy Leadership Academy (ICELA) is a partnership involving campuses in Nottingham, China and Malaysia. The project engages national and international industry partners from the screen industry and museum sectors. Partners include Shanghai Museum, New York Met, the V&A, National Portrait Gallery, Xinhuanet and Beijing Youth Arts 100 Alliance.

ICELA has expanded its activity in China beyond traditional continuing professional development to not only upskill Chinese creative educators, industry professionals and young, entry-level professionals, but also to support creative SMEs in the UK to work through barriers to developing trade links with China.

It is the first of its kind in being a regional (east China) international knowledge exchange network and hub that delivers training, trade and investment support, policy and industry networks, hotdesking space, and research development opportunities.

The project has brought together people who would not have worked with each other before – both within individual universities, and between universities and industry. It has proved to be a springboard for research collaboration and by establishing a large knowledge-sharing consortium which will work to address skills issue collaboratively.

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