TESS-India

TESS-India is a multi-award-winning initiative that aims to strengthen and transform professional development and classroom practice in India. The programme provides an innovative, practical and scalable approach to pre- and in-service teacher education, with an emphasis on inclusive, participatory child-centred pedagogy.

Initiated in November 2012, TESS-India was implemented across seven priority states: Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Karnataka, Assam and West Bengal. TESS-India open educational resources (OER) have been embedded into pre- and in-service teacher education programmes across all seven states, sustainably strengthening existing systems at relatively low cost and reaching more than 1 million teachers and teacher educators.

Freely available to all, TESS-India’s comprehensive toolkit of 191 open educational resources (OER) equips teachers with the knowledge to actively engage their students in meaningful learning. The toolkit comprises of 105 teacher development units, 20 school leadership units, 10 principles of practice, 55 videos of authentic classroom teaching and a compendium offering sample teaching learning pathways through the OER.

Created collaboratively with over 200 Indian and international teacher education experts, the toolkit enables teachers to turn teaching policy into real practice. Resources can be selected sequenced and adapted flexibly according to the priorities of states, districts, schools or individuals. They can be studied by teachers independently or with the support of teacher educators. Completed by over 50,000 participants, teacher educators are also supported by a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) available in English and Hindi.

The TESS-India programme has successfully employed several approaches to help raise awareness and promote positive change in classroom teaching practice.

The full TESS-India toolkit of Open Educational Resources can be found on the TESS-India website. 

You can also view the 55 videos of authentic classroom practice on TESS-India’s YouTube Channel and get in touch via email at tess-india@open.ac.uk.