Dai Jones: Facilitator figure

An award-winning teacher from the United Kingdom is in Calcutta to generate resources and support for a city-based NGO, Child In Need Institute (CINI).

Dai Jones teaches in a West London school, where 90 per cent of the students are Indian. He is visiting schools in and around Calcutta with the objective of exchanging educational practices, besides networking with local schools and the British Council to generate resources and support for CINI.

“The role of a teacher is evolving. Teachers today function more as facilitators in the learning process rather than deliverers of knowledge,” said Jones.

The teacher — winner of the best teacher award in his home country in 2006 — is trying to figure out whether the traditional pattern of teaching still exists in India and its preparedness to embrace a change in the system.

His other interest areas are issues like school dropouts, rampant in both India and the UK. Though the reasons are different in the two countries, Jones has a suggestion: Each school should cater to the varying needs of the students.”

Jones, who is here for a week, has visited areas where CINI is working with underprivileged children. “Despite the resource constraint, a lot of good work is done for the people in need,” said Jones.

Villers High School, where Jones is a teacher, has been contributing to CINI’s projects for some time. Every year, the school has a ‘give up a goody’ day when students donate the money they would have spent on a goody to CINI. “Two students had raised over £ 2,000 by baking and selling cakes,” said Jones. The money was spent on the health project in Ramgarh for two years.

He is also meeting schools like Pratt Memorial and St James and with the help of the British Council, trying to see how CINI can network with them. “We would like the relation to culminate in an exchange visit,” said Jones.