Activities Alumni / Trainees Reviews/Testimonials, Videos, Photos, Blog

Upcoming event: Workshop in July 2010
Dr. Kusumika Chatterjee, Advisory Teacher for Coventry &Warwickshire; LA Governor will be conducting a workshop with primary school teachers on 30th July and 31st July 2010 with hands on teaching methods. The first day will be a workshop on story telling for Preschool educators and the second day for Primary school teachers covering “Movement and language with special reference to grammar and Connecting History, Geog and science with stories”. Dr Chatterjee is a very well known teacher with nearly 30 years of experience and has received recognition for her work from the President of India and the Queen of England for her pioneering efforts for underprivileged immigrant children & others.

We are organizing another meeting of core members on July 29th with the focus on a seminar in August. We hope to have more core members who will have a preliminary discussion of their topics for the seminar & its relevance.

Academic Forum details
We are a group of like minded people, predominantly teachers of English . For some time we have been debating on the issue of the current state of academic excellence in our country, focusing naturally on our state. By March 2010 we enrolled a number of members for a Board as well as a core group of people all with similar intentions of promoting academic excellence.

On Saturday March 20 we had our first meeting. It was a small but select gathering of some board & core members.

The list included:
Dr. Reena Sen, Director , Institute of Cerebral Palsy
Mr. Barun Chanda, Advertising professional & Theatre activist
Mr. S. Barat, Head IT , BESU ( Shibpur Engineering College )
Dr. Nira Konar,  Kolaghat Engineering College
Dr. Indrajit Bose, Professor of English , Guru Nanak Institute of Technology
Mrs K. Grewal, Principal, Foundations
Ms Nandini Mukherjee, Head of the Department English, Calcutta International School
Ms Sipra Chatterjee , Senior teacher, History, South Point School plus the teaching staff of ATI.

Three school principals were unable to attend as board exams were going on.

The meeting was extremely interactive & fruitful as it enabled the members to counter their ideas in a receptive platform . Most members spoke about their personal professional experiences which gave us an insight into why such a forum is necessary.

Since all the members present came from different & diverse professions it was exciting to exchange ideas & thoughts. The first meeting engendered some nebulous ideas which need to be crystallized into focus.

A Report on the First meeting of the Academic Forum on Saturday, March 20, 2010
The first meeting was organized at ATI on a Saturday . The core & board members present on the occasion were:

Dr. Reena Sen , Director, Training research & Education - Institute of Cerebral Palsy
Director B Ed course, Jadavpur University
Dr. Neera Konar, Asst. Professor & Head College of Engineering & Management
Dept. of basic Sciences Humanities at Kolaghat, West Bengal
Dr. Indrajit Bose, Sr. Lecturer in English, Guru Nanak institute of Technology, Sodepur
Ms Nandini Mukherjee, HOD , English, Calcutta international School
Mrs Kamaljeet Grewal, Founder Principal, Foundation School
Ms Sipra Bhattacharya, Sr teacher, History, South Point School
Mr. Barun Chandra, Advertising Professional & Theatre Activist
Mr. Surya Sarthi Barat, Director, School of IT, Bengal Engineering & Science Shibpur

All the teachers of American TESOL Institute and coordinators were present. After the Welcome Address the meeting was in process. All the participants interacted actively. The members introduced themselves to start with. It was an eclectic mix of people from diverse walks of life . Our members naturally comprise a large number of English language Teachers but the others from History & It were equally vocal about the general state of education. The discussion was mostly on the aims & objectives of the programme & the best way to solve them. Everybody shared their experiences & tried to fit it into our goal. As a first meeting it was also an icebreaker of sorts.

It was fascinating to learn about the experiences of Dr. Reena Sen who spoke of her trials with disabled children & her concepts about the problems of Bachelor of Education aspirants as she heads the department in a University .

Mr S Barat spoke at length on his work with IT students & their needs for English Training. Mrs Grewal talked about her involvement with underprivileged children & their requirements . Drs Konar & Bose have been involved with arranging seminars & trainings with students & discussed them. Ms Mukherjee spoke about the importance of English education . Mr Barun Chanda shared his experience of teaching English on behalf of a British NGO to underprivileged kids.

In the end the consensus that was reached was that something concrete has to be done &
the objectives should be clearly defined . There were suggestions of interacting with the Govt. to help spread education in the poorer students in local schools & maybe districts.

All the members had a common goal & interest . In spite of small attendance it was a fruitful first meeting . The seminar was planned then & will be happening in late August.