http://www.ciol.com

NEW DELHI,INDIA: The President of India, Pratibha Devisingh Patil launched a national portal for teachers, www.teachersofindia.org, at Rashtrapati Bhavan today on the occasion of Teachers' Day.

Launching the portal the President said it is definitely a medium to improve the quality of education in schools and will also improve the teacher-student interaction in classrooms.

Developed and managed by the Azim Premji Foundation, with support from the National Knowledge Commission, the portal offers a platform for teachers to share best practices and generate discussion in the teaching community.

Over the next few months the portal will offer content in several languages as well as provide access to other communities such as students, parents, teacher educators etc, the developers said.

In the first phase the portal uploads of material created by and for teachers in five languages – Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada.

The developers expect teachersofindia.org to function as a forum for teachers to freely interact with each other across languages and to facilitate the sharing of insights and best practices of teachers across the country.

It also aims to provide access to resources, information and new experiments in education from all over the world in all Indian languages.

A district-wise directory of resource organizations working in education will soon find place in the portal thus helping teachers gain access to material and people in their own geographic area, the release added.

During the subsequent phases of the portal, teachers will continue to contribute their thoughts and will be able to interact with each other and post questions, opinions etc.

The portal will also provide links to websites of other organizations, institutions and people to provide access for teachers. This apart, resource material by experts in the field will be made available on the portal either directly or through links.