NITI Aayog has partnered with Bharti Foundation -- the philanthropic arm of New Delhi based business conglomerate Bharti Enterprises -- to launch Convoke 2021-22, a national research symposium which aims to address the myriad challenges of imparting education.
The symposium will offer solutions to improve the quality of teaching with special focus on all teachers, educationists and heads of schools across India.
Through this platform, school teachers, heads and principals of government schools as well as teachers from the Bharti Foundation network will be encouraged to use research-based solutions through scientific approach, and showcase their efforts taken at the grass-root level in improving learning outcomes.
Convoke 2021-22 began registrations for inviting research papers from teachers and principals/heads of schools from December 9.
Over the years, teachers have been coming up with innovative solutions to help support students, even more so during the lockdown. Through Convoke, they can now share their micro research papers. These research papers will be analyzed by a panel of Educationists and the shortlisted ones will be presented during the ‘National Research Symposium’ scheduled in January 2022.
The launch event was chaired by NITI Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar and attended by a host of representatives from the government agency -- including CEO Amitabh Kant and adviser (education) Prem Singh -- as well as Bharti Foundation co-chairman Rakesh Bharti Mittal and CEO Mamta Saikia.
Representatives from the Union ministry of education, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), officials of state education departments, and State Councils of Educational Research and Training from all states and Union Territories also attended the event virtually.
The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 identifies teachers and faculty as the heart of the learning process. It recommends that teachers will be recognised for novel approaches to teaching that improve learning outcomes in their classrooms. It also recommends developing platforms so that teachers may share ideas and best practises for wider dissemination and replication.
NITI Aayog’s education adviser Prem Singh said, “Convoke will promote the suggestions of NEP 2020 on recognizing novel approaches to teaching that improve learning outcomes in their classrooms. Convoke will help in creating a culture of using research-based pedagogy to improve learning outcomes in school education.”
NITI Aayog V-C Rajiv Kumar added, “There is a need to focus on quality as we have achieved near universal access to elementary education. It becomes an immediate and foremost important task given the learning regression that has happened due to the COVID-19 school closures. I hope that Convoke will become a Pan India movement towards improving learning outcomes through joyful teaching and learning. I appeal to all the education stakeholders to make quality education a mission to meet the aspirations of our youth. We must also focus on pre-school education as a significant number of children are not attending pre-school and therefore lagging behind in learning outcomes when they enter schools.”
According to Bharti Foundation co-chairman Rakesh Bharti Mittal, the foundation endeavours to enhance the quality of teaching and improve learning outcomes amongst teachers and students in schools. Together, the collaboration will provide a platform for educators to spread their knowledge across the country so that the goals put forth in NEP 2020 can be realised with speed and consistency.
The applications for CONVOKE are open. Register through the link below.
https://bhartifoundation.org/convoke/