Centre for Teacher Accreditation (CENTA)
Centre for Teacher Accreditation (CENTA) is a social enterprise based in Bangalore. It was founded by Ramya Venkataraman and Nalini Haridas, both of them having deep backgrounds in Education. The organization aims to empower teachers and catalyze their professional development, through its CENTA Certification that will connect outstanding teachers and teacher candidates to great opportunities. Through this, CENTA hopes to motivate teachers more broadly to take full ownership of their own professional development and therefore also catalyze demand for high quality teacher development. In the Long term, we hope to contribute to teaching being a more "celebrated and preferred profession".
Long-term vision of CENTA is that with the increase in opportunities and recognition and with greater professionalism overall, a larger number of people with the appropriate skills, attitudes and passion embrace teaching and it becomes a more celebrated and preferred profession!
Founders
Ramya Venkataraman is Founder & CEO of Centre for Teacher Accreditation (CENTA), a natural next step given her long-standing passion for education. Prior to this, Ramya was with McKinsey & Company for close to 16 years, including as Leader of the Education Practice, which she built, and in multiple other industry sectors/geographies in the first 10 years – a broader professional experience that she continues to bring to bear in her education work. Ramya was recently elected an Ashoka Fellow in recognition of her leadership and continued contributions to the education space. She earlier received a Global Entrepreneurship Award from McKinsey, was profiled by a Professor from the Institute of Education, UK, for system level impact. Ramya holds a B.Tech from IIT Delhi and an MBA from IIM Calcutta, and has received prestigious awards for leadership at both institutes.
Nalini Haridas co-founded Centre for Teacher Accreditation (CENTA), formalizing her long standing interest in school education and specifically the quality of teaching and learning. Her interest in education spans across areas such as teaching effectiveness; learning areas such as garden science, design and technology, learning at museums; education systems such as indigenous learning systems. Nalini completed her B.Tech from IIT Delhi in 1998. She has also pursued a year-long certification (2005-2006) in financial risk management from IIM Bangalore.
Vision
Teachers feel empowered and take strong ownership of their own professional development and effectiveness in the classroom, therefore leading to significant improvement in the quality of student learning. Teaching becomes a more preferred and celebrated profession, with great opportunities for outstanding teachers.
Mission
Mission of CENTA is to establish a well-accepted competency assessment and certification mechanism that identifies outstanding teachers and teacher candidates and creates great opportunities for them as well as the schools they belong to and the teacher training colleges and organizations supporting them.
CENTA Standards
The CENTA Standards form the basis for the CENTA Certificates and Teaching Professionals' Olympiad (TPO). The CENTA Standards are a well-defined set of expectations for teachers at different stages of their careers, have been developed through a rigorous process and are meant to evolve continuously. The CENTA Standards correspond to the three levels of the CENTA Certificates:
- L1 : New Teacher – Typically relevant for teachers who are in the early stages of their career or are yet to begin their professional career.
- L2 : Experienced Teacher – Typically relevant for teachers with 3–10 years of experience, who are able to enrich their teaching based on their own experiences and other inputs.
- L3 : Senior Teacher – Typically relevant for teachers with more than 10 years of experience; such teachers may often be in a position to assume the role of a specialist teacher in their chosen subject/grade level or a coach where they mentor other teachers or a leader in the School or beyond.
The CENTA Standards cover: (A) 'Competencies, and (B) 'Mindsets . The 'Competencies' section of the CENTA Standards covers three categories of competencies for Teachers:
- 1. Technical Competencies (Competencies specific to teaching as a profession)
- 2. Core Competencies (Fundamental competencies of an individual)
- 3. Professional Competencies (Competencies relevant for effective interactions in a professional environment)
Each category has multiple competencies, with each 'competency' having one or more 'aspects' associated with it. For each aspect, standards have been defined for each of L1, L2 and L3 through specific 'descriptors' highlighting the competency expectations from the teachers of the respective level.
The 'Mindsets' section of the CENTA Standards covers attitudes and beliefs. The assessment towards the CENTA Certificates currently looks at these only in a limited and experimental manner, whereas the Competencies are assessed in detail and form the basis for the Certification Download the current version of CENTA Standards here.
CENTA Teaching Professionals' Olympiad (TPO)
CENTA Teaching Professionals’ Olympiad (TPO) is a first-of-its-kind national competition to reward, recognize and celebrate teachers and also the first step towards the CENTA Certificates. TPO is based on the Centre for Teacher Accreditation (CENTA) Standards, a set of well-defined competencies for teachers. TPO will cover a subset of the CENTA Standards 1 and interested candidates can go through the practical assessment post the TPO to attain the full CENTA Certificates.
The Full CENTA Certificate
CENTA Certification is a certification for K-12 teachers (including full-time, supplementary and voluntary teachers, working with school students of various grade levels) based on the rigorously developed CENTA Standards. The CENTA Certification intends to recognize outstanding teachers, therefore opening up a range of potential opportunities for them.
Certification Process
The Certification process consists of two components – Teaching Professionals' Olympiad, which is the first step towards certification and Practical Assessment, which serves as the stage two towards the certification.
CENTA Teaching Professionals' Olympiad (TPO)
CENTA Teaching Professionals’ Olympiad (TPO) is a first-of-its-kind national competition to reward, recognize and celebrate teachers and also the first step towards the CENTA Certificates.
Practical Assessment part of the Certification
Once a teacher has appeared in the first stage, which is CENTA Teaching Professionals' Olympiad (TPO), and based on his/her teaching experience, he/she is eligible to apply for the Full CENTA Certification which requires a teacher to submit artifacts such as lesson plans, weekly reflection, video reflections etc.
Advisory Board
- Ashish Dhawan, Founder and CEO, Central Square Foundation, Winner of Forbes ‘Nextgen leader in philanthropy award’
- Bahram Vakil, Founding Partner, AZ&B Partners.
- Michael Fernandes, Partner, Leapfrog Investments.
- Sridhar Rajagopalan, Executive Vice Chairman, Educational Initiatives
- Dr. Ganesh Natarajan, Founder, 5F World; Chairman, NASSCOM Foundation; President, HBS.
- Dr. James Tooley, Professor of Education Policy, University of Newcastle, UK.