As part of a joint initiative, the ICICI Centre for Elementary Education (ICEE) is presently working with the Government of Rajasthan, Digantar Shiksha Evam Khelkud Samiti (Jaipur) and Vidya Bhawan Society (Udaipur) on the Quality Education Programme in the district of Baran in Rajasthan. The programme aims at strengthening the training and support provided by the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) through block and cluster resource centres under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

Radheshyam Nagar (41) has been a teacher for 12 years and teaches at the Primary School, Charadana in Atru, Baran where he attended the in-service teacher training programme.

"Training with Digantar is quite different from other such training programmes because it gives us new ways of looking at the teaching learning methods. It gives a new perspective of looking at the relation between the teachers and the pupils in which a teacher is expected to interact with students in a participatory manner through different activities like songs, puzzles, rhymes, story telling and different games... Also we learn that teaching is not a subject to impose on the children... rather the role of the teacher is of a facilitator for which the teacher should feel the need to gather different materials so that he could provide more and more new things to his children in the classroom", he ends thoughtfully.