CBSE Hubs of Learning (HoL) for Schools to be functional by July, 2019

Hubs of Learning

The Delhi government, on recommendations of the CBSE, for promoting "holistic education" amongst students in India, has introduced a new collaborative program called "Hubs of Learning."

The program would bring together four to six schools under one wing that would learn from each other through extra curricular activities, science exhibitions, art workshops, educational fairs, etc. One school out of these four to six group of schools would be selected as the "lead collaborator school", which itself would be based on the performance of that school in board exams and such other factors. The CBSE has in fact enlisted nine such criteria in its official notification dated March 9, 2019, which would make a school a "lead collaborator school." This position is on a rotation basis and would change every two years.

CBSE, as one of India's primary education boards conducting secondary/senior secondary exams and providing affiliations to schools, has launched a number of initiatives recently to enhance the quality of education in the country. Hubs of Learning is one such program. The program aims at making students undergo self improvement through a promotion of shared learning amongst learners.

The above core theme of the program makes the project collaborative in nature and government/government aided/unaided schools have been notified of the same. Curriculum, teacher training and pedagogical practices are the important focus areas of the program and schools are to learn from each other their best practices related to these focus areas. In more general terms, in the coming weeks and months students will get an opportunity to participate in interactive study exhibitions and science fairs. Teachers too would get an opportunity to attend training sessions or workshops. CBSE has termed the entire teacher training process as "mutually beneficial professional learning" that would help them learn best practices related to assessments, curriculum design, teaching methodologies, classroom demonstrations, etc.

The school leadership, on the other hand, also has this responsible role of enhancing the quality of education in their schools and providing a similar kind of support to other schools. CBSE has mentioned how small schools may have the best teachers but not enough resources to promote self enriching learning whereas some big schools may have all the resources but not the best of teachers. Hubs of Learning would provide such interaction opportunities to schools that the best teachers would get a platform to share their knowledge and techniques with other teachers. For the students, on the other hand, this would be a more interactive and hands on learning process thereby breaking the rot of monotonous learning.

The schools have been instructed by the board to complete the process of implementing the Hubs of Learning project by the end of July, this year. It has been made mandatory for all the CBSE schools under each group to meet once a month compulsorily and if that is not possible, then a virtual meeting be organised for the same.

The board is conducting an orientation program for the Principals & Managers of the schools located in or around Coimbatore city as per following schedule:

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