About the Project
This project is one of the 2022 WISE Awards finalists.
Context and Issue
Most education reform efforts around the globe tend to be ‘top-down’, with systems and schools ‘pushing’ training, technology, content, pedagogy, etc. onto their teachers and classrooms. For example, they try to ‘mandate’ teachers to use these and improve their practice, or try to ‘appeal’ to teachers. Most fail to address the question, “How do we make it professionally valuable for teachers themselves?”, i.e. career growth, financial benefits, rewards, recognition… which any professional looks for.
In the absence of professional value, the mandate and the appeal are both unsustainable. CENTA is reversing this question on its head by supporting teachers on their career growth, through its certification that serves as a benchmark of quality (now widely-recognized in India and getting increasing recognition internationally), and therefore motivating teachers to take charge of their own professional development and ‘pull’ for it, which is also then supported by CENTA.
Solution and Impact
MyCENTA is an end-to-end platform for teachers, certifying their competencies, connecting them to career growth opportunities and supporting their professional development on a day-to-day basis. The MyCENTA platform is central to CENTA’s mission, as a technology-enabled platform for certification, learning, career linkages and community, for teachers.
Our project has 4 main types of impact:
- Self-driven learning by teachers: Currently 600,000 teachers benefitting; in the last 1 year, over 1 million self-driven accesses to learning resources/programmes.
- Professional value for teachers: In an independent survey, over 50% CENTA-associated teachers reported increase in personal confidence; over 43% reported concrete workplace opportunities (the number much higher among ‘certified’ teachers).
- Government systems have started using CENTA for career growth inside the government, therefore motivating a much larger teacher population – e.g. Governments of Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, etc.
- Ecosystem partners getting together to ‘make teaching aspirational’ is an important intangible impact of CENTA’s work.
Future Developments
We are targeting two sets of outcomes for the MyCENTA project in 3 years:
- 15 million+ teachers from across the globe (mainly emerging markets) impacted, indirectly impacting 1 billion students. The opportunity for teachers to build relevant skills in a tech-enabled way and participate in an increasingly global career can drive this in a self-sustained manner, supported by initial investments in technology and outreach.
- In-depth research towards 80% correlation between teacher competencies tested and student outcomes as seen in a global assessment like PISA.
These two outcomes together can shape the future of education, placing the teacher in the centre, as the agent of change.
