News and Events
Helping competency-based learning come to life in Indian classrooms
Cambridge joins an open day to share their role in the British Council-CBSE competency-based learning project with educators across the country.
India’s Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the British Council are working with partners, including Cambridge, to strengthen the capacity of schools to deliver quality competency-based lessons. The project aims to empower teachers and students in more than 26,000 schools associated with CBSE to succeed in higher education and the workplace. It looks at Science, Maths and English in particular. The work aligns with the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020), which sees a shift from rote-learning to competency-based education to help drive a vibrant knowledge economy in India.
Cambridge’s role in this project is to support capacity development. The Partnership for Education’s approach here combines international knowledge from Cambridge’s Faculty of Education, along with local expertise from Cambridge International in India. Together, they have produced a bespoke programme which aligns with the CBSE curriculum. Cambridge led workshops to equip 360 master trainers and mentors with the skills they need to support teachers with the roll out of competency based learning in classrooms. The team also created a series of lesson plans to help put those skills into practice.
On 28, 29, and 30 September 2021, the competency-based learning project partners held a virtual open day event for teachers and staff at CBSE schools across India. CBSE officials, education solution providers and educators joined together to discuss embedding a competency-based education approach in teaching, learning and assessment. The event has already been streamed more than 25,000 times online.
Cambridge’s presentation focused on competency-based education pedagogy, principles and practice. It was delivered by Preeti Hingorani, Vice-President for Education Reform South Asia; Nivedita Bose, South Asia Senior Education Manager; Marc Neesam, Head of Professional Development Solutions; and Steven McGill, Senior Education Advisor. The team shared an overview of how Cambridge explores competencies. They broke down layers of the curriculum and provided a perspective on how competencies can be related to each layer. They also explored the position of teachers when implementing competencies in the classroom, for example Cambridge speakers suggested teachers think about what opportunities are given to learners to demonstrate each competency alongside the wider curriculum. The team highlighted two practices that can support developing competencies in the classroom: effective lesson planning and formative assessment, also called Assessment for Learning. Finally, they walked through some of the model lessons plans and shared insights into five key strategies for Assessment for Learning. The collection of lesson plans is now available online for free, and Cambridge encouraged teachers to use them as they put training into practice.
Preeti Hingorani, Vice-President for Education Reform, Cambridge South Asia: “It was exciting to connect with so many educators at this virtual open day. Helping teachers understand the thinking behind what they’re being asked to do will help them embed and deliver competency-based learning more successfully – an important step towards the goals of NEP 2020. Thank you to our partner British Council and to CBSE, it’s a great to work together on this project.”
Watch Cambridge’s presentation at the open day from 2:15:05:
