Rayat – Bahra joins hand with Intel

Intel supports Rayat – Bahra to develop Model Colleges
Rayat- Bahra & Intel to prepare educators for 21st century skills

Chandigarh, July 10

As part of its efforts to extend benefits of technology to education in schools, the Rayat-Bahra Society signed an MoU with Intel today to launch the Teach Essentials Online course in North India in Pre-Service segment.

Gurvinder Singh Bahra, Vice Chairman of Rayat-Bahra group said, “The partnership with Intel is a significant step towards our concrete commitment to enthuse innovative and practical ideas in improving education standards in schools.”

He added that by committing itself to Project XPDITTE - X-celerated Professional Development in Integration of Technology in Teacher Education, a collaborative effort of Intel Teach program and NCTE (National Council for Teacher Educator), Rayat- Bahra has become first private education group to undertake professional development workshops on enhanced techno-pedagogy skills for all its teacher educators. This initiative would help its colleges to become Model Colleges.

Information Communication Technology (ICT) and teacher training provided by Intel will aide group in getting benefits of technology percolate down to teachers and students in rural and semi-rural areas and develop their competency in the age of IT.

Rahul Bedi, Director of Corporate Affairs, Intel, South Asia said that Teach Essential Online Course is a professional development course offered by Intel® Teach Program that provides teachers with skills to effectively integrate computer technology, especially Web 2.0 tools to enhance student learning. The curriculum is research based and focuses on bringing latest web based technologies into classrooms. It provides trainees strategies to use technology as a tool for research, communication, collaboration, and productivity.

Bedi further added that under this programme, Intel shall train teachers to participate and work as unit designers. They would learn to create technology-infused and student-centered projects that are based on their syllabus guidelines. It will improve problem solving and increase participating in peer reviews of units.

Teachers will also get exposure to explore possibilities of current web-based collaborative technologies and will also get to network online with other teachers.

As a part of MoU, Intel will provide Intel teach pre service curriculum manuals, teacher educator handbook (English) and curriculum companion CDs to all teacher educators who will undergo professional development workshops.

Intel shall also provide Curriculum License to Rayat-Bahra Education Society to print and publish the Intel Teach Pre Service Curriculum for student teachers.

Intel® Teach Pre-Service Program in India was initiated in India in 2003 with an objective to empower teacher educators across colleges of education and future teachers with the effective use of technology in the teaching practices.

At present, program is being successfully implemented across 74 universities and 10 State Councils of Educational Research Training (SCERT) where teacher educators are provided with training and resources for their use in the existing teacher training programs like B. Ed. and D. Ed. Pre-service students are guided to use technology to tap into vast reservoirs of information, work in teams, design instruction units and courses to help their future students meet the challenging standards.