IISER Pune To Train Undergraduate Level Teachers, MoU Signed With Maharashtra State Faculty Development Academy

Pune, 23rd October 2021: The Maharashtra State Faculty Development Academy (MSFDA), Mumbai and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune, will jointly work to develop and implement capacity-building workshops for faculty members of universities and affiliated colleges under the Department of Higher and Technical Education, Government of Maharashtra.

The two organizations signed an MoU on October 20, 2021, in the presence of Uday Samant, Minister for Higher and Technical Education and Vikas Rastogi, Principal Secretary. 

From the MSFDA team, Dr. Nipun Vinayak, Executive Director (MSFDA); Pramod Patil, Joint Director (Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan), and Dr. Vijay Joshi, General Manager (Academic) attended the meeting, while from IISER Pune, Prof. Jayant Udgaonkar, Director IISER Pune; Col. G. Raja Sekhar (Retd.), Registrar; Prof. Harinath Chakrapani, Dean, International Relations and Outreach (IRO); and Dr. Sourabh Dube, Associate Dean, IRO were present. 

In this endeavour, IISER Pune will collaborate with the MSFDA to organise online as well as intensive in-person workshops on modern inquiry-based teaching skills, research-based pedagogies, and core philosophies of science and mathematics education. 

Both the collaborators expressed their happiness for the joint programme to commence in a hybrid mode by the end of this year. Dr. Sourabh Dube presented an overview of the joint training programme during the meeting. Speaking about the collaboration, Dr. Dube said, “We aim to develop content for both digital and in-person training to encourage the principles of inquiry-based teaching for science and mathematics teachers across Maharashtra.” 

“MSFDA, the brainchild of Saurabh Vijay, intends to train the faculty of around 5500 colleges of Maharashtra in a phased manner. The focus of the training will be a multidisciplinary curriculum pedagogy, leadership, innovation, inclusion and diversity. In collaboration with all the universities and Institutes of Eminence, MSFDA will nudge to streamline higher education towards its actual purpose of cultivating a total human being,” said Dr. Nipun Vinayak, Executive Director (MSFDA) on the overall goal of this initiative.

IISER Pune has been engaging with school and college teachers to impart skills to them aimed at helping teachers improve their science and mathematics teaching skills. Through these earlier initiatives, at the UG and PG levels, teachers across India have benefited from various workshops conducted by IISER Pune under multiple initiatives, including those conducted via Centre of Excellence in Science and Mathematics Education (CoESME) established under the scheme of the Ministry of Education, Government of India.

“IISER Pune is committed to excellence in science education and has been engaged in conducting training workshops for teachers over the last few years. We are delighted to be a partner for the capacity development programme with the MSFDA and to work with college teachers across Maharashtra”, said Prof. Harinath Chakrapani, Dean IRO, IISER Pune.