What role does education play in achieving sustainable development goals? How can education drive transformative changes leading to environmentally and socially just societies? How can key stakeholders be involved in creating inclusive, equitable, and empowering learning environments that prepare individuals and communities for a rapidly changing world?
This course addresses these questions by first examining and problematising the role education has played in sustaining social inequalities; and then deliberating on how education can be transformed to create empowered teachers and students towards attaining an equitable, just, and sustainable future.
The course derives from the results of a four-year, four-country research programme on ‘Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures’ or TESF. It is led by Professor Poonam Batra, a TESF co-investigator and one of India’s leading academics with four decades of interdisciplinary experience across elementary, teacher and higher education practice and policy in India.
The course is designed to make TESF research and examples of transformational education accessible to practising teachers, student-teachers, the wider teacher education and policy community, and other stakeholders with an interest in education.
In this introductory module, you will learn a few important details about the course, including the objectives of this course, who the instructors and the course team are, as well as important information to navigate the course. You will also find a link to a Pre-Course Survey – please do fill this as it will help us get to know you better and prepare the course accordingly.
What's included
1 video3 readings1 discussion prompt1 plugin
Show info about module content
1 video•Total 6 minutes
Course Introduction•6 minutes
3 readings•Total 25 minutes
Course Overview and Objectives•5 minutes
Important Course Information•10 minutes
Meet the Course Team•10 minutes
1 discussion prompt•Total 10 minutes
Introduce Yourself and Meet your Peers•10 minutes
1 plugin•Total 10 minutes
Pre-course Survey•10 minutes
Module 1: Education Aims, Policy and Teachers: Evolution of Perspective, Measures, and Impact
Module 2•3 hours to complete
Module details
In this module, you’ll become familiar with the development of the education system from Colonial India to Independent India and the continued impact of policy trajectories on school and teacher education. You will also have the opportunity to reflect on the potential role of teachers in achieving high-quality education.
What's included
4 videos1 reading1 assignment2 discussion prompts
Show info about module content
4 videos•Total 39 minutes
Socio-Historical Frames of Key Policies•11 minutes
Teacher Voice and Agency •9 minutes
Quality Education•10 minutes
Case Study: Looking Inward, Looking Forward•9 minutes
1 reading•Total 90 minutes
Readings in Module 1•90 minutes
1 assignment•Total 20 minutes
Module 1 Assessment•20 minutes
2 discussion prompts•Total 25 minutes
Module 1: Any Questions?•10 minutes
Watch This Video and Respond to the Question•15 minutes
Module 2: Childhood, Child, Curriculum, and Pedagogy: Evolution of Perspective, Practice, and Challenges
Module 3•4 hours to complete
Module details
By the end of this module, you would develop some insight into how the concept of childhood evolved and how this understanding is critical to designing school curriculum and pedagogy. Engaging with the progression of the Right to Education Act would help in understanding how children’s rights are sought to be met in a plural and hierarchised society and how the role and accountability of the state is critical in safeguarding children's rights and their well-being.
What's included
6 videos1 reading1 assignment3 discussion prompts
Show info about module content
6 videos•Total 66 minutes
Childhood, Work and Schooling•12 minutes
Diversity, Gender, Caste and Children’s Voice•12 minutes
Case Study: Hum Hindustani•9 minutes
RTE: Long Wait for India's Children•11 minutes
Whither RTE?•10 minutes
Curriculum Frames and Practices •13 minutes
1 reading•Total 90 minutes
Readings in Module 2•90 minutes
1 assignment•Total 45 minutes
Module 2 Assessment•45 minutes
3 discussion prompts•Total 30 minutes
Childhood•10 minutes
RtE Act 2009•10 minutes
Module 2: Any Questions?•10 minutes
Module 3: Teachers, Curriculum, and Pedagogy: Subject Content, Context and Interdisciplinarity
Module 4•4 hours to complete
Module details
This module helps you recognise children as epistemic entities and the importance of encouraging children’s voice and agency in achieving their true potential. This module will assist you in cultivating capacities and dispositions to appreciate the diversity of children’s backgrounds and to integrate their lived experiences in the teaching-learning process.
What's included
7 videos1 reading1 assignment3 discussion prompts
Show info about module content
7 videos•Total 74 minutes
Content-driven Pedagogies•13 minutes
Case Study: Development of Water Classrooms•11 minutes
Learning & Assessment•11 minutes
Theatre and the Arts in Education•11 minutes
Case Study: Theatre and Art in Education for Young Women•9 minutes
Case Study: Hum Hindustani•9 minutes
Knowledge, Curriculum, Textbooks and Gender•11 minutes
1 reading•Total 90 minutes
Readings in Module 3•90 minutes
1 assignment•Total 30 minutes
Module 3 Assessment•30 minutes
3 discussion prompts•Total 35 minutes
Theatre/Creative Drama•10 minutes
Read this Poem•15 minutes
Module 3: Any Questions?•10 minutes
Module 4: Education and Inclusion: Identity, Caste, Inequality, and Education
Module 5•4 hours to complete
Module details
In this module, you will develop tools and capacities to understand, engage with and integrate diverse lived experiences of students in the teaching and learning process. You will be able to understand how formal schooling processes, communities, larger social and political contexts facilitate or hinder the inclusion of children in classrooms.You would also engage with ideas of decolonising school curriculum as part of a wider project of ‘decoloniality’ which implies dismantling relations of power and conceptions of knowledge that tend to reproduce hierarchies based on caste, gender, class, community, and region.
What's included
8 videos1 reading1 assignment3 discussion prompts
Show info about module content
8 videos•Total 75 minutes
Unequal Learning Environment and Exclusion•11 minutes
Social and Gender Inequities and Schooling•11 minutes
Case Study: Education, Margins, and the City•8 minutes
Case Study: Dialogue-based Pedagogy for Gender Education•11 minutes
Case Study: Redefining Sustainable Development•8 minutes
Case Study: Voices from the Margins•8 minutes
Case Study: Looking Inward, Looking Forward•9 minutes
1 reading•Total 90 minutes
Readings in Module 4•90 minutes
1 assignment•Total 20 minutes
Module 4 Assessment•20 minutes
3 discussion prompts•Total 30 minutes
Caste, Class, Community, and Gender•10 minutes
Decolonising the Textbook•10 minutes
Module 4: Any Questions?•10 minutes
Module 5: Gender, School, and Society: Perspective in Curricula, Pedagogy, and Educational Arrangements
Module 6•4 hours to complete
Module details
This module of the course offers you opportunities to reflect upon the nuanced and deep influence that socio-cultural structures of class, caste, and community have on gender and how classroom pedagogy can be reinvented to equip teachers to become sensitive and socially responsive to the unequal nature of gender and to seek transformative pedagogies.
What's included
6 videos1 reading1 assignment3 discussion prompts
Show info about module content
6 videos•Total 66 minutes
Gender and Education•11 minutes
Case Study: No Space for Some•10 minutes
Theorising Gender•12 minutes
Evolving Gender Discourse in Colonial and Independent India•12 minutes
Case Study: Interrogating What Reproduces a Teacher•9 minutes
Transformative Pedagogies•12 minutes
1 reading•Total 90 minutes
Readings in Module 5•90 minutes
1 assignment•Total 45 minutes
Module 5 Assessment•45 minutes
3 discussion prompts•Total 30 minutes
Gender Inequality•10 minutes
Class, Privilege, and Gender•10 minutes
Module 5: Any Questions?•10 minutes
Course Assessment and Conclusion
Module 7•2 hours to complete
Module details
In this final module, you will get the opportunity to check your understanding of all that you've learnt so far with the graded assessment in the form of a multiple-choice questionnaire. You will also hear from our instructors on what they hope the ideal key takeaways are for you from this course. Finally, please fill in the Post-course Survey – this will help us understand your journey during the course and improve it to make learning more meaningful.
The Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) is a national education institution committed to the equitable, sustainable and efficient transformation of Indian settlements.
When will I have access to the lectures and assignments?
To access the course materials, assignments and to earn a Certificate, you will need to purchase the Certificate experience when you enroll in a course. You can try a Free Trial instead, or apply for Financial Aid. The course may offer 'Full Course, No Certificate' instead. This option lets you see all course materials, submit required assessments, and get a final grade. This also means that you will not be able to purchase a Certificate experience.
What will I get if I purchase the Certificate?
When you purchase a Certificate you get access to all course materials, including graded assignments. Upon completing the course, your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile.
Is financial aid available?
Yes. In select learning programs, you can apply for financial aid or a scholarship if you can’t afford the enrollment fee. If fin aid or scholarship is available for your learning program selection, you’ll find a link to apply on the description page.