PUNE: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has set up 13 Centres of Excellence (COE) to equip in-service teachers of schools affiliated to it, with the latest updates and strategies through various capacity building programmes so that they face the challenges head on and create a better teaching learning environment in schools.

Out of the 13, one of the COEs for the jurisdiction of Maharashtra, Goa and Daman is in Pune.

Other COEs are at Ajmer, Allahabad, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Dehradun, Delhi, Guwahati, Kakinada, Panchkula, Patna, Bareli and Thiruvananthapuram.

Further, schools are required to submit an online report of the capacity building programmes attended by their teachers along with the new areas for capacity building programmes required by the teachers so that a need-based plan in COEs may be prepared to cater to their requirements.

“Continuous professional development of teachers vis a key element in improving the quality of education and to prepare them to keep pace with the challenges of the present dynamic world,” reads the circular issued by the CBSE for the same.

The schools affiliated with the board have been instructed to nominate their teachers for various capacity building programmes conducted by the CBSE COEs. The training will include programmes in gender sensitivity, career guidance, value education, competence building in different subjects, life skills, etc.