Nexus of Good: Enlightening the educators

The National Education Policy (NEP), announced in 2020, rightly places enormous emphasis on pre-school education and foundational learning. A number of researches have revealed that initial few years of child, even before she/he goes to school formally, are extremely critical. Hence, appropriate intervention at this stage is necessary. This recognition came about in the NEP. However, all this is easier said than done. How do you get trained human resource to take care of these initial years of a child? Integrated Preschool Teachers Training Academy (IPTTA) in Hyderabad has made considerable headway in this regard, well before the announcement of NEP. Under the able guidance of its founder, Sonal Andrews, they have set the ball rolling.

Situated in the heart of Hyderabad, Integrated Preschool Teachers Training Academy (IPTTA) stands as a pioneering institution committed to preschool educators' holistic training and development. With a dynamic curriculum tailored to meet the evolving demands of early childhood education, IPTTA strives to empower aspiring teachers with the skills, knowledge, and pedagogical tools necessary to foster a nurturing learning environment for young children.

The journey began in the year 2013. IPTTA's vision was to establish an effective Teachers' Training Institute through the quality training program in the Early Childhood sector. There was a belief in constantly upgrading as per the needs of the changing trends in the field of education. In today's highly competitive world, IPTTA can proudly claim to have established itself as a brand known to be the expert in training candidates in the Early Childhood Education sector.

IPTTA’s aim is to develop passionate candidates with active and creative minds, understanding and compassion for children, and the courage to act on their beliefs. The stress is on total development of each aspirant: spiritual, moral, intellectual, social, emotional, and behavioural. The objective is to create a generation of early childhood educators who would then guide the nation's future!

IPTTA strives to create and unleash a whole new generation of 'evolved' Early Childhood Educators to enable mothers to gain knowledge about raising their children and, eventually, making a career of guiding the future citizens of the country and making every woman independent, not only financially but also socially and emotionally.

Recognizing tremendous potential of womenfolk and with the motto "Happiness is the Attitude; Passion is the Aptitude, and Humanity is the Ultimate Religion!", Sonal endeavoured to build a society where every Early Childhood Educator is trained in a manner that she teaches not just out of books but out of passion. To that end, the aim has been to unleash the potential of every woman interested in making a difference in a child's life through education. For a woman, the most important thing to do is to know herself completely, who she is, what she believes in, and in which direction she wants to go.

IPTTA is affiliated to both JNCTE and All India Early Childhood Care & Education (AIECCE), an Educational Organisation that takes guidance from NCERT and is accredited by the International Accreditation Organization (IAO), a symbol of quality. IPTTA’s diploma is accepted and recognised internationally. It is India's only teachers' training institute to be ISO certified by the Centre of Assessments for Excellence (COAE)

IPTTA’s team of mentors is fully qualified, very experienced, and highly dedicated to its roles – many have been with the academy since it opened in 2013. They genuinely value continuity of teaching and know how important consistency is in a student's life, which is why the team is made of full-time educators only.

IPTTA offers offline and online diploma courses in early childhood care and education. The HSE-Harmonious Spectrum Education Curriculum, a cooperation between alternative ideas and existing learning tools, is followed. It focuses on social development, which is essential to creating a humanly friendly environment. It also provides fully trained and equipped teachers to teach in schools across the country.

Every year, IPTTA trainees showcase all they have learnt through an exhibition of teaching aids, which is called IPTTA Fest. Based on a selected theme, the trainees create interesting, cost-effective, and creative teaching aids and cover the entire syllabi from Nursery to Grade 2, and make sure that they are teaching it using interesting modes like games, rhymes, stories, activities, art and craft, and sensory stimulation, i.e. GRASS.

At IPTTA Fest 11, held on February 10, 2024, based on the theme ‘Nature, the teacher’, instead of making teaching aids, objects from around nature and surroundings were used to teach all the concepts covered in early childhood. More than 600 teachers from various schools across Telangana attended the fest and were inspired by the teaching methods displayed.

IPTTA provides for the following verticals:

1. Teachers training diploma (offline course);

2. Online teachers training course;

3. Workshops for existing teachers;

4. Curriculum development for schools (Nursery to Grade 2);

5. Collaboration for setting up teachers training centres;

6. End-to-end solutions for ECE;

7. Consultant for ECE;

8. Audits for the early years’ centre.

IPTTA has already garnered accolades and a number of awards. It has successfully highlighted an extremely important aspect of early-childhood education, and managed to put in place a model that is replicable and scalable in the true spirit of Nexus of Good through public-private partnership. The protocols and standard operating procedures for addressing early childhood education-related issues have been created and their efficacy clearly established. A number of state governments who recognize the need and necessity of early childhood education, so prominently outlined in NEP, have come forward to adopt this model. What Sonal Andrews and her committed team have put in place has the potential of transforming early childhood education. This silent revolution in Telangana is all set to change the landscape dramatically.

Views expressed are personal