2 insights & 1 puzzling question from a recent Master Trainer Training in Bihar

2 insights & 1 puzzling question from a recent Master Trainer Training in Bihar

Top 2 insights & a puzzling question from my recent Master Trainer Training in Bihar for the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, India

Last week, I was in a 5-day MTT to introduce the Employability Skills Curriculum to the Govt ITI Ecosystem in Bihar. It was a large bunch of trainers from every district of Bihar, opening themselves to the ideas of 21st Century learning, Future of work, Blended learning & the Quest App!

1. Bihar is in serious need of an Employability Skills Revolution. While the youth of Bihar fixate on Govt Jobs, preparing them for the possibilities of #gig & #platformeconomy, #entrepreneurship , #selfemployment, #futureofwork is the key to break the cycle... ITIs are not just spaces of skill building, they are a ripe arena for reframing the future of blue-collared jobs in India.

2. Language is not a big barrier in adult education. Lack of clarity & purpose are. With basic empathy, ingenuity & clear communication the boundaries of langauge can be crossed through common-vision building. As a Kannadiga, my Hindi skills were non-existant 6 years ago. Now it is mildly comical. To my joyful surprise, the otherwise demanding trainers from the Bihar-heartlands did not ask for translation. We made sense to each other!


Now, the question:

Educators are expected to have high moral values around caste, gender & class inclusivity. Yet, like most other people, they succeed at keeping discrimination alive.

A senior trainer refused to have his meal because the person serving it 'contaminated' the food & water can by carrying a bag with veg & non-veg food. Some trainers wanted to know the full names of all trainers, indicating their caste status. In a room full of male trainers, lead by a all female-facilitator team the gender-stereotyes were under high-pressure! The training space is a more 'sanitized', microcosm of the real world.

This has got me thinking - What can we do to create real value-shift in the educator community?

#diversityandinclusion #casestudy #mastertrainertraining

To the question. I feel curiosity, in this case, will NOT kill the cat. We need to be curious as facilitators and as peers. Keep asking why, and somehow suspend our judgement. I'm hardly an example of this. My facial expressions are an open book.

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We have had a similar experience wrt to gender-based, caste-based and even religion-based biases playing out in the 'training of trainers' spaces - giving a small (and scary) glimpse of how they must play out on the ground, in classrooms. I realized that these biases are easier to challenge (if not, break) when we get the chance to work with a diverse group of educators - a group that has substantial (if not equal) representation of women and minority groups.

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Aakash Sethi

Education Technology leader, social entrepreneur and network weaver

2 年

Educators need a lot of work to break those biases. One approach is to give access to learning experiences and support systems to do it at their own time.

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