The Department of Education, CTA has organized a five- day workshop on Early Grade Reading for primary teachers from 23rd to 27th May, 2017 in the Nyatri Hall, Gangchen Kyishong, Dharamsala. There are 23 teachers who are participating in it from different schools under various administrations namely THF, STS, TCV & CST Schools. The opening ceremony was chaired by Mr. Karma Sengye, Secretary of the DoE, CTA. Mr. Tenzin Dorjee, Section Head of Academic and Modern Section, DoE welcomed everybody and introduced the background of the Early Grade Reading Workshop for Primary Teachers. Dr. Latika Gupta, resource person highlighted the importance of teaching Tibetan in an interesting way so that children read books in their mother-tongue with interest and excitement. Mr. Karma Sengye emphasized on the importance of giving a workshop to the primary teachers to nurture free reading habits among the early graders and explained the significance EGR as one of the most essential projects implemented by DoE.

The participants are participating actively in the workshop. They are reading theoretical and practical articles and other resource material. The teachers are raising pertinent questions about how to teach reading and writing Tibetan in the most effective way. Most of the teachers suggested that such a workshop should be given to the pre- primary teachers so that they can teach children to develop an interest in books from nursery itself.

The early grade reading workshops have been organized by the Department of Education since 2013. A total of 24 batches has been trained so far involving approximately 423 primary teachers from various Tibetan schools in India and Nepal. This project started on the basis of the recommendations made in the education advisory committee meeting held in 2013. Our aim is to train all the primary teachers teaching in all subjects. The resource person along with the DoE Official, EGR followed up with the previously trained teachers. For this purpose, they visited the Southern, North East & Ladakh Tibetan schools to provide on-site guidance to the teachers and to supervise the implementation of various dimensions of EGR namely establishment of reading corners, distribution of books and so on.

Dr. Latika Gupta is Assistant Professor at Delhi University and works in the field of literacy education. She has been the resource person of DoE for all the EGR workshops. This project is being generously funded by USAID through the Tibet Fund.