CTSA Teachers Attend Cultural and Educational
Exchange Program in UKThursday, 9 October 2008, 3:43 p.m.

CTSA teachers, Pema Gyaltsen (left) and S.C. Rauto (right) with Deputy Head Teacher of Hollyfield Secondary School, Surbitton, UK.

The
contact seminar is part of the “School Partnerships Strand” of UK India
Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI), launched by the British Council.
The initiative aims to substantially improve educational links between
India and UK to ensure a long-term partnership of choice in education between
the two communities. To meet this aim UKIERI facilitated partnerships between
clusters of school in India and UK. The successful clusters first met and chose
their partners at the contact seminar.This year an application by the
CTSA for its inclusion in the UKIERI program was accepted and a pre-contact
seminar was held on 20 August at the Hotel Hans
Plaza, New Delhi. Six teachers of the CTSA and the Principal of
Central School for Tibetans, Mussoorie, attended the seminar.Mr. Pema
Gyaltsen and Mr. S. C. Rauto, both trained graduate teacher of Science, were
selected to attend the contact seminar in UK. During the seminar, they met
representative of 13 clusters of schools in UK and chose “Kingston – on –
Thames” cluster as their partners, which represent four schools for the children
in the 3 – 11 age group.The two CTSA representatives paid visits to the
four partner schools and developed a project to be executed in the academic year
2008 – 09. The project will facilitate students from all the six CTSA schools in
Shimla, Mussoorie, Herbertpur, Dalhousie, Darjeeling and Dholanji, with
opportunities to interact with students of four partner schools through Internet
and by exchange of mails or cards.

CTSA Teachers with Head Teacher and Deputy Head Teacher of Lovelace Primary School, UK.

Under this
project, the UK cluster schools will celebrate “Tibet Week” and “India Week”,
whereas CTSA schools will observe UK Week. The events aim to promote awareness
about the life and culture, and to highlight the concept of global
citizen.The UKIERI partnership also includes professional development of
teachers and the school heads. For this the cluster representatives have been
given access to UKIERI web site through which one can add resources for others
use as well as access rich resources made available by others to help in the
professional growth of teaching community. The head teacher and teacher
representatives of the UK cluster will also pay visit to CTSA schools in June
2009. This UKIERI partnership will be funded through the British Council for
three years.