Former Secretary, School Education, Govt of India, Mr Anil Swarup, inaugurates ‘IPTTA-Fest!

Hyderabad: The one day ‘IPTTA-Fest – 10’, hosted by IPTTA – Integrated Preschool Teachers Training Academy, was inaugurated by the Chief Guest Mr Anil Swarup, IAS (Retd.), Former Secretary, School Education, Govt. of India; Founder Chairman, Nexus of Good and author of the bestseller ‘Not Just a Civil Servant’; today at the State Gallery of Fine Arts, Madhapur. Guest of Honour Ms Sultana Moidu, a renowned early childhood education expert; graced the occasion. Ms Sonal Andrews, Director and founder of IPTTA; fifty aspiring candidates graduating from IPTTA, school principals, teachers from various schools and inquisitive parents, were present on the occasion.

IPTTA-Fest is a unique exhibition of innovative teaching aids for pre-primary and primary teachers and all other stakeholders of Early Childhood Education. Teaching aids primarily help children to grasp and develop prerequisite skills and learn difficult to comprehend concepts with an element of fun. Teaching aids make classrooms more interactive, children more attentive and enhance their brain development during early years. The Aids are made from indigenous material, with multipurpose utility and could be used at different levels.

Speaking on the occasion Mr Anil Swarup said, I am so glad at the work IPTTA is doing here. What IPTTA is doing is very essential for school education in this country. Something which is now being recognised in the National Educational Policy is that, development of child in initial years is extremely important, something which was ignored earlier, but is being addressed now. But organisations like IPTTA are providing teachers who are capable and trained to teach something which not everyone can do, but I am glad that IPTTA is doing that through its training. My hope and wish is that this model they set up gets scaled and more and more teachers get benefitted from the training that is given here. In India there is no dearth of ideas but for that idea to fructify and sustain for a period of time it has to overcome several challenges and that’s a tough job. But its people like you who keep telling us, that despite all these constraints if things can happen, we can also make them happen. That’s the source for inspiration to meet with performers and deliverers like you. I am glad that I am here with you people, I made a round of the exhibition and see some phenomenal work being done. You are touching upon a very crucial aspect of school education. One thing I understood is that the brain of a child gets made in the first six or seven years and fortunately the new education policy focuses on developing the mind of young child and that’s what you are also doing. My only desire is that the good work you are doing gets to be known and others tend to replicate what you are doing here, because the ultimate objective should be scaling the good work.

Speaking on the occasion, Sonal Ravi Andrews said, Teaching aids can play a crucial role in facilitating learning and make it more interactive and engaging for children. By using teaching aids, teachers create a more dynamic learning environment that caters to different learning styles and abilities. IPTTA-Fest is showcasing some innovative ways of teaching difficult concepts, simplifying the entire learning process to be in sync with the child’s perspective, thus enabling the kid to comprehend easily. Children have short attention span, teacher can grab and prolong their attention through interesting and innovative teaching aids, she adds.

IPTTA-Fest – 10, had over 100 innovative teaching aids and 300 activities, conceived and created by the outgoing batch of fifty early childhood teachers from IPTTA. The creative collection for this year’s exhibition revolves around the theme, Geochrome – colours and shapes. They are presented in the form of stories, rhymes, language, math, EVS, art and craft, games and activities. These teaching aids and activities encompass the syllabus of pre-primary and up to grade 2 curriculum. The exhibits are designed to grab the attention of students and make them learn complex and abstract concepts in a lucid and coherent way. The Aids comprise of puppets, interactive books, multisensorial creative techniques, live counters, take aways etc. Each of them is used to achieve specific learning objectives to make learning interesting. IPTTA-Fest – 10, exhibition is in sync with National Educational Policy (NEP) 2020 and National Curriculum Framework (NCF) for Early Years Education.

Sonal Ravi Andrews said, through IPTTA Fest, we are creating a platform for teachers at Pre-primary and Primary level to learn and share innovative methods of teaching, which are easily replicable and within the budgetary constraints that schools have. IPTTA’s objective is to make classroom learning for pre-primary school children interesting and teaching aids are the foundation for a good learning. Every year IPTTA-Fest, brings more than a hundred teaching aids on one theme, to make every class interesting to the kid. With today’s children being overloaded with digital inputs, for them to feel and touch things will make lot of difference and that’s what teaching aids do. More than 700 teachers visited the exhibition from across the city and neighborhood, to learn and share their knowledge, to evolve innovative and best practices in Early Child Education area. This exhibition was an excellent opportunity for those in teaching profession and parents to see innovative and original methods of imparting knowledge, while being able to grab the attention and get the child interested, she adds.

IPTTA-Fest is a unique platform for aspiring pre-primary and primary teachers studying at IPTTA to showcase their talent and knowledge acquired from the yearlong diploma program. Around thirty participants exhibited their works which were innovative, easy to comprehend for the child and could be replicated conveniently in the classroom.