Expression of Interest:

EXPRESSION OF INTEREST is invited by the Central Board of Secondary Education from experienced and established training institutions/ agencies for Inservice training programs for the teachers (interactive and/ or online mode) at various locations in the country related to Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE).

1. The Framework:

1.1 The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), a registered society and an autonomous organization under Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, is one of the three important national Boards. The main objectives of the Board are to serve the educational Institutions effectively and to be responsive to the educational needs of the students. The Board has 10,837schools affiliated with it including 150 schools in twenty one countries. There are Kendriya Vidyalayas, Government Schools, Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Central Tibetean Schools and Independent Schools affiliated to the Board. The prime focus of the Board is on :

(a) prescription of suitable curriculum for its various schemes of examination in both academic and vocational streams.
(b) regularly updating the pedagogical skills of the teachers and administrators by conducting in-service training programme and workshops,
c) setting norms for affiliation of institutions for the purpose of public examination and;
d) prescribing as well as updating the course of instructions to raise the academic standards in the country.

1.2 The Board’s policies are based on national policies of education and it has primarily adopted and adapted the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005. The NCF 2005 operates on five guiding principles that envisage a learner centered curriculum, founded on the learner’s ability to construct his or her own knowledge (constructivism) thus giving primacy to the learner. It advocates teaching to facilitate knowledge construction, evaluation as diagnostic to remediate, refine and improve learning processes. As learner’s readiness to take an examination has become paramount, thus, the examination reforms were a logical consequence. Evaluation for learning was to be a major shift in the extant paradigms of examination oriented learning. As a major step of reform in this direction was making the board examination in class X optional especially when the certificate is not very important for further continuance of studies. 1.3 To realize the above objectives, the Board has strengthened several of its academic initiatives treading beyond its direct mandate as an examination body such as periodic guidelines and training programs to encourage innovation in teaching-learning methodologies; advocated joyous learning without burden in primary and upper primary; and implemented the process of CCE in primary encouraging for extension in upper primary. It had extended it to the secondary classes by including a component of internal assessment in the external examination of class X.

1.4 Notwithstanding all these efforts to streamline pedagogic practices, the one- time board examination still reigned supreme and remained the focus of pedagogy instead of being learner centric. Hence, the MHRD/CABE endorsed the NCF recommendation of making board exam optional in class X as appropriate for implementation. This, inter alia, also included making the evaluation more comprehensive and continuous to assess both scholastic and co scholastic abilities of the students i.e. Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE). This further required empowerment of schools to decide the selection of appropriate evaluation tools for facilitating individualized instruction and enhancing the quality of learning in respect of each child placed in the custody of the teacher.

1.5 The philosophy of CCE takes cognizance of two important factors, namely the various components of human personality that govern the process of learning and continuous assessment of all these to facilitate perpetual refinement of construction of knowledge. In operational terms, it would mean designing effective evaluation tools that would serve for formative and summative stages of learning.

1.6 The Board has taken various thoughtful initiatives to prepare a comprehensive road map to operationalize and implement the examination reforms of the government in a time bound and effective manner with public interest at focus. One such initiative is implementation of the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) from October 2009 in Class IX onwards. The Board has conducted Master Trainer programs at 95 venues across the country covering more than 7,000 affiliated schools and teachers in excess of 20,000 from September 2009 to January 2010. The objective was to cover maximum number of schools and at least three teachers (including principal of the school) of each school so as to make them understand and assimilate the contents and nuances of CCE and they in turn could train and sensitize other teachers in their schools.
 

The Board also prepared and published teachers’ manual and training modules on CCE.

2. Aims & Objectives:

2.1. The steps taken so far by the Board have been a beginning and the experience suggests further inclusion of empowered teachers through continuous professional development in CCE.

2.2. In order to realize the above, the Board intends to create a panel of institutions capable of providing in–service training for teachers at various locations across the country. The purpose of the training program would be to provide a deeper insight into the process of CCE and to empower teachers with practical class room ideas across different subjects so as to equip them adequately to implement CCE in its true spirit.

2.3. The Board would also empanel or shortlist agency(s) to conduct online training. The agencies must have appropriate facility for conduct of training program, adequate hardware/software setups, proctoring staff, adequate data base etc. A prototype of training may also be enclosed by the agency.

2.4. The agency shall be required to execute the work on “End-to-End Outsourced basis” i.e. everything is owned and managed by the agency under direction and control of the Board.

3. Scope of work for the selected agency:

3.1 The short listed agency shall be required to conduct in-service training program for teachers at various locations in the country and/ or online training as stipulated under para 2.2 and 2.3 above respectively.

3.2 The scope of work shall include the following-

3.2.1 Development of content of training material based on CCE framework as contained in the Teacher’s Manual and other appropriate material available on the CCE portal of the Board’s website. The development of course material for two days training program could include-

3.2.1.1 Trainer’s Manual 3.2.1.2 Teacher’s manual with Activity sheet

3.2.1.3 Handbook for Parents and Students

3.2.1.4 Provision for Handholding or mentoring through their own portal

3.2.2 Design of interactive training modules.

3.2.3 Implementation and operationalization of training programs which could include-

3.2.3.1 Detailed training strategy/ approach and training calendar.

3.2.3.2 Feedback mechanism from course participants.

3.2.4 Generation of reports to CBSE at regular intervals.

3.2.5 Development of an appropriate website for online training model (for para 2.3 above only).

3.3 The agency short listed may also contribute towards the future development of the scheme.

4. Qualifying Criteria:

4.1 The agency must be registered in India with appropriate tax and other administrative authorities.

4.2 The agency shall be of repute having demonstrable track record of successfully conducting training programs preferably teachers (for para 2.2) and providing mentoring/ training in an online environment (for para 2.3). Credentials from the clients must also be enclosed.

4.3 The agency may apply for both training programs i.e in-service interactive as well as online training OR may apply for either of them.

4.4 The agency must have key professionals on their panel, either in regular or contractual capacity, who, have sufficient knowledge and experience in the said work and must provide details in the EOI document.

4.5 The agency must have sufficient infrastructure of their own or on lease and must have adequate stand-by arrangement to take care in cases of break-down etc.

4.6 The agency must have healthy financial status.

4.7 The agencies must have proven track record to maintain sanctity of intellectual property.

5. General conditions:

5.1 All information called for in the enclosed format shall be furnished against the relevant columns in the form. Even if no information is to be provided, a ‘Nil’ or ‘No such case’ must be mentioned. The agencies giving incorrect or incomplete or not in clear terms or making any changes in the prescribed form or deliberately suppressing the information shall be summarily disqualified. The applicant should sign on each and every page of the application.

5.2 The agency shall be required to attach a prototype of the program envisaged. The agency may furnish any additional information, which is deemed necessary to established capability in the relevant field. Superfluous information need not be furnished and no information shall be entertained after submission of EoI Document unless specifically called by the Board.

5.3 The Board may ask the agencies to make presentation before the technical evaluation committee. The prospective agencies may seek clarification at science.cbse@gmail.com through e-mail. However, the Board reserves the right not to respond to any questions raised or provide clarification sought at its own discretion.

5.4 Even though agency may satisfy the qualifying criteria, it is liable to disqualification if it has record of poor performance such as abandoning project, not properly completing the assigned work etc.

5.5 All disputes arising shall be subject to the jurisdiction of appropriate court of Delhi, India and shall be governed by the law of India. All the contents and documents submitted by agencies shall be property of the Board. The agencies/firm meeting the qualifying criteria may submit their “Expression of Interest” to this office latest by 31st May 2010 by 2:00 p.m. The EoIs received shall be screened by the Committee and may invite agencies to make their presentation. The shortlisting shall be done on the basis of fulfillment of technical pre- requistes, presentation, company’s profile and its understanding of work. The shortlisted agencies shall be sent “Request for Proposal (RFP)” for competitive selection of agency. The Secretary, CBSE reserves the right to accept or reject any or all proposals without assigning any reasons thereof.

Courtesy: www.cbse.nic.in