About Us | Centre of Excellence in Teacher Education

About Us

The Centre of Excellence in Teacher Education, CETE (formerly, Centre for Education, Innovation and Action Research, CEIAR) is an independent Centre at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Established as CEIAR in 2015, the Centre has been engaging with, and promoting innovation in school curriculum, teacher education and higher education curriculum and pedagogy. The Centre of Excellence in Teacher Education (CETE) will work towards revitalising the education sector through research, academic programmes, teaching, field action, policy advocacy, partnerships and collaborations.

Seed support for CETE was provided by the Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching (2019-2020) and the Tata Trusts. The Tata Trusts continue to support CETE as the national nodal Centre in their Initiative for Excellence in Teacher Education.

Our Vision:

While there is recognition that Teacher Education is one of the most important pillars of the education system and strengthening teachers is the key to sustainable long-term reform, it remains one of the least focused upon areas. There is an urgent need to strengthen this pillar since teachers impact the lives of thousands of students in their teaching careers.

The new identity of CEIAR as the Centre of Excellence in Teacher Education (CETE) reflects the renewed energy and expanded scope of its vision and objectives to impact the learning outcomes of children across schools in India by equipping the teachers who engage with them with the necessary skills, knowledge and attitudes required in their profession.

CETE envisages its role as a "Catalyst for Transformation in Teacher Education" through multiple activities.

The Centre continues to build on its contemporary academic programmes to provide relevant skills and perspectives to new entrants, practicing teachers and professionals. It continues to strengthen deeper, meaningful and impact-oriented engagements with various stakeholders in the sector, incubating and promoting innovative use of new technologies and media to raise relevance, quality and standards of education.

Teaching Programmes:

The Centre offers long term programmes in MA (Education), B.Ed./M.Ed. (Integrated, NCTE recognised) and M.Phil. and PhD in Education.

In the in-service CPD space, CETE currently offers the following short term courses and programmes in blended and online modes:

- Reflective Teaching with ICT (RTICT) for in-service teachers and teacher educators

- Post Graduate Certificate in Education Perspectives and Research (PGC-CEPR) for Teacher Educators and Administrators.

Partnerships & Collaborations:

CETE actively fosters collaborations and invites global expertise to steer research, training and educational exchange across cultures. Some of our India partners include Center for Education Research and Practice, Jaipur; Department of Education, Mizoram University, Aizawl; Eklavya, Bhopal; Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, TIFR, Mumbai; National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru; State Council of Education and Research and Training (SCERT), Chhattisgarh; Tata Class Edge; Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune; Govt. of Chhattisgarh; Govt. of Mizoram; Govt. of Rajasthan and Govt. of Telangana. Our international partners include Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA USA, and Trinity College, Dublin.

Grants:

The Centre has been granted the SPARC collaboration award to work with the University of Sussex, UK, the Centre for International Teacher Education, South Africa, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. The Centre was also awarded the UGC-UKIERI grant for collaboration between Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Azim Premji University, and King’s College, London, to conduct workshops and faculty exchanges programmes.

Accreditations & Awards:

The Centre’s flagship action research programme, the Connected Learning Initiative (CLIx) (http://clix.tiss.edu), was awarded the UNESCO-King Hamad Prize for the Use of ICTs in Education (2017 edition) and the Open Education Awards for Excellence: Resources, Tools and Practices under the category of ‘Open Collaboration’ in 2019 from the Open Education Consortium. Integrated Approach to Technology in Education (ITE), for which the Centre is a technical partner, won the 7th Enabling North East Award (2019-20) for Quality Education and Learning. The Centre’s in-service teacher education programmes and Communities of Practice were awarded a certificate of appreciation by the UNESCO-Hamdan Award for Teacher Effectiveness (2020).

Ongoing Activities:

Projects:

Apart from its award winning projects, the Connected Learning Initiative (CLIx) and Integrated Approach to Technology in Education (ITE), CETE has a number of education projects currently underway. Some of these include the (recently concluded) NHRC study, The DIET Strengthening Programme with the District Educational Resource Centres (DERCs) with the State Government of Karnataka, collaborations with Open University on Digital Badges, Connected Learning and Research on Inclusive Education (CLearR on IE, supported by Cognizant), grants from the Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) for teacher education and CLIx, and the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) report commissioned by UNESCO (Paris) on the role of Non-State Actors in Teacher Education.

Outreach:

Weekly workshops are conducted at the Centre with school teachers on Saturdays under the school synergy initiative. Topics covered in these sessions have ranged, in the past, from mathematics, science, language, creative writing, social sciences, poetry and puppetry to assessments and design thinking in education. The modalities are a mix of webinars and workshops.

Design thinking workshops for educationists are also organised and conducted by the faculty at CETE annually, and on more instances, upon request by organisations. So far, the Centre has conducted 3 such workshops, two of which were open calls, and one in a completely online mode under the restraints imposed by the pandemic.