How Teacher Training Under DPEP is Transforming Primary Education

When the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) was launched by the Government of India in 1993-94, it carried a clear-eyed recognition: no reform in primary education can succeed without investing in the people who deliver it every day – the teachers. Enrolling millions of children in school was only half the battle. What happened inside the classroom mattered just as much. And for that, teachers needed structured, continuous, and contextually relevant training. DPEP’s approach to teacher training was not an add-on – it was central to the entire programme’s architecture.

Why teacher training was non-negotiable under DPEP 🔗

India’s primary education system in the early 1990s was plagued by more than just infrastructure gaps. Many teachers, particularly in rural and tribal areas, lacked access to professional development opportunities. Teaching methods were largely rote-based, textbook-driven, and disconnected from the lived realities of children – especially those from disadvantaged communities. DPEP recognized that simply recruiting more teachers and building more schools would not, by itself, raise learning outcomes. Quality had to be built from the ground up.

Teacher training under DPEP was positioned as a quality improvement measure – one of six core components of the programme alongside access, equity, infrastructure, curriculum development, and community participation. The programme provided teachers with in-service workshops, refresher courses, and hands-on professional development opportunities specifically designed to shift pedagogy from passive instruction to active, child-centred learning. This shift was crucial for children from marginalized backgrounds who needed teaching methods that were engaging, relevant, and inclusive.

The DPEP guidelines explicitly required states to develop enhanced capacity for teacher training as a condition of receiving central funding, making professional development a programmatic priority rather than an afterthought.

A decentralized training approach: the logic behind BRCs and CRCs 🔗

One of DPEP’s most consequential structural decisions was to decentralize teacher training. Rather than relying solely on state-level institutions far removed from local schools, the programme built a layered support system that brought training physically closer to teachers – at the block and cluster levels.

Block Resource Centres (BRCs) 🔗

Block Resource Centres were first established in DPEP districts during 1994-95, making them one of the earliest institutional innovations of the programme. Each BRC functions as a nodal agency for educational planning and management at the block level. It is headed by a Block Resource Coordinator who is responsible for organizing in-service teacher training, providing guidance to sub-block institutions, and distributing academic materials from the District Project Office to teachers through the cluster network. BRCs also draw on a pool of Block Resource Persons (BRPs) and Master Resource Persons (MRPs) to deliver training sessions to teachers at scale.

Cluster Resource Centres (CRCs) 🔗

Below the BRC in the hierarchy sits the Cluster Resource Centre. CRCs are smaller units, each covering five to ten schools, with a Cluster Resource Coordinator who works in close coordination with the BRC. While BRCs handle broader policy and logistics, CRCs provide direct, on-the-ground support. During the DPEP period, Cluster Resource Persons (CRPs) primarily conducted school visits and monthly meetings of teachers, creating a rhythm of regular professional contact that had never existed before in most districts.

Together, BRCs and CRCs are government-sponsored centres designed to provide academic and technical support to schools in a specific geographical area. By working closely with teachers and school administrators, they help identify where improvement is needed and provide the targeted support to address those gaps. This model was a deliberate departure from the old inspection-based system, shifting the emphasis from surveillance to resource support and mentoring.

By the time DPEP reached its full scale, approximately 3,380 resource centres had been set up at the block level and 29,725 at the cluster level across DPEP states – a vast decentralized infrastructure dedicated to teacher support.

Training modules and the shift to activity-based learning 🔗

What distinguished DPEP’s teacher training from earlier programmes was not just its scale, but its content. The training modules were built around a child-centred, activity-based learning philosophy. Schools under DPEP saw curriculum revisions that minimised written content and brought in drawing, colouring, group activities, field trips, and reading corners – a dramatic change from the rote-learning environment that had previously defined many primary classrooms.

Teachers were trained to facilitate this kind of learning rather than simply deliver information. The training materials developed under DPEP were practical and locally contextualised – in some states, early readers featured songs about everyday objects and activities familiar to children, making literacy instruction more accessible and enjoyable. The underlying principle was clear: children learn better when they are active participants, not passive receivers.

Alongside pedagogical training, DPEP’s quality improvement component focused on curriculum development, teaching-learning materials, and classroom process enhancement. Teachers received specific training on using these new materials effectively, ensuring that the resources created at the state and district levels actually made their way into classroom practice.

Distance education was also leveraged. A Distance Education Programme (DEP), launched in 1997 and funded by the World Bank, was engaged in building the capacity of primary education personnel using audio, audio-visual, teleconferencing, and print study material – extending training reach to teachers in remote areas who could not easily attend in-person sessions.

The role of SCERT and DIET in supporting teacher training 🔗

The BRC-CRC network did not operate in isolation. It was anchored within a larger institutional framework led by two critical bodies: the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) and the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET).

SCERT: the policy and curriculum backbone 🔗

SCERT functions as the academic wing of the state education department. It is responsible for designing state-level curriculum, developing teacher education programmes, and producing support materials for both children and teachers. In the DPEP context, SCERT provided the overall policy and content direction for training – determining what teachers should learn, what materials should be produced, and how the state’s training calendar should be structured. SCERT provides guidance and support to DIETs in implementing state-level policies and programmes related to education, making it the apex academic authority within which all district-level training functions.

DIET: the district-level training hub 🔗

The establishment of DIETs was linked to DPEP, and when the programme expanded in 1994, an additional 148 DIETs were established, bringing the total to 260 at the time. These institutions were set up in each district to serve as the nodal academic authority for teacher development at the local level.

The main function of DIET is to train and orient teachers and make them aware of new pedagogy and innovations. This includes both pre-service training for new teachers entering the profession and in-service training for those already in classrooms. DIETs also conduct action research, develop locally appropriate curriculum materials, and evaluate the quality of school education within their districts.

Crucially, DIETs are responsible for training the master trainers at the block and cluster level – the very BRPs and CRPs who then cascade that training to teachers across hundreds of schools. This cascading model was central to DPEP’s strategy for achieving scale. Without DIET’s capacity to train the trainers, the BRC-CRC network would have lacked the academic foundation it needed to function effectively.

DIETs also train members of Village Education Committees and community leaders, recognising that teacher development alone cannot transform education without broader community engagement. Their work spans planning, material development, monitoring, and evaluation – making them multi-dimensional institutions rather than simple training centres.

Impact on classroom learning and student performance 🔗

The combined effect of structured teacher training, decentralized support through BRCs and CRCs, and institutional backing from SCERT and DIET was measurable. The Gross Enrolment Ratio in DPEP districts increased from approximately 95% in 1994 to over 100% by 2002, with significant improvements in gender parity and retention rates – particularly for girls and children from marginalized communities.

Within sample schools assessed under DPEP, the results on teacher quality were encouraging. In the schools surveyed, all teachers were found to be trained, and the pupil-teacher ratio of 1:32 was better than both the state average of 1:35 and the national average of 1:36 at the time – a concrete indicator of the programme’s investment in human capital at the school level.

The shift to activity-based learning also began to change the culture of classrooms. Teachers trained under DPEP were better equipped to engage children from diverse backgrounds, adapt their methods to local contexts, and create inclusive environments where even the most disadvantaged learners could participate. These gains were not uniform across all districts – implementation quality varied, and sustainability remained a challenge once external funding wound down. But the directional shift was clear and significant.

DPEP’s emphasis on decentralised planning, community participation, and inclusive education became key features of the later Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), which built directly on the BRC-CRC model and expanded it nationwide. The institutional architecture that DPEP put in place for teacher training did not disappear when the programme ended – it was inherited and scaled.

DPEP’s legacy in teacher professional development 🔗

DPEP demonstrated that teacher training must be systemic, decentralized, and continuous – not a one-time event. The programme’s greatest institutional contribution was arguably the BRC-CRC network: a tiered support structure that placed trained resource persons within reach of every primary school teacher, regardless of how remote their school was. The role of BRC and CRC is a mixed set of academic, supervisory, managerial, networking and creative activities – going well beyond routine monitoring to encompass teacher mentoring, community-school linkage, resource support, and action research.

The programme also elevated the importance of DIETs and SCERTs as institutions capable of shaping not just training content, but the professional identity of teachers at the grassroots level. For a country as large and diverse as India, building that capacity at the district level – rather than expecting it to flow from the centre – was a foundational insight that continues to inform educational policy today under the National Education Policy 2020, which reaffirms the centrality of DIETs and cluster-level support in teacher professional development.

What do you think? If the BRC-CRC model was so effective in decentralizing teacher support, why do you think many of these centres still struggle to fulfill their academic potential even today? And given that teacher quality is widely recognized as the most significant factor in student learning outcomes, how should current educational programmes build on DPEP’s training architecture to ensure that no teacher is left without meaningful professional support?

References

1. https://cprindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/DPEP-Guidelines.pdf
2. https://educationforallinindia.com/district-primary-education-programme-dpep-1994/
3. https://govtcareerhub.com/source-based_reports/district-primary-education-program-dpep-india/
4. https://karmayog.org/education/district-primary-education-programme/
5. https://educationforallinindia.com/introduction-to-block-resource-centre-2023-role-functions/
6. https://educationforallinindia.com/overview-of-cluster-resource-center/
7. https://ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in/edup13/chapter/resource-centers-at-block-and-cluster-levels-structure-and-appraisal/
8. https://educationforallinindia.com/this-brief-provides-an-overview-of-block-resource-centers-brcs-and-cluster-resource-centers-crcs-in-india-and-their-role-in-improving-the-quality-of-education-by-providing-academic-support-and-res/
9. http://www.doccentre.net/docsweb/Education/DPEP.html
10. https://educationforallinindia.com/diets-in-india-present-status-challenges/
11. https://dietbaksa.in/role-function-diet
12. https://scert.delhi.gov.in/scert/district-institute-education-training-diet
13. https://scert.bihar.gov.in/about-diet
14. https://ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT1133399.pdf