State Council of Educational Research and Training, Maharashtra in collaboration with Kotak Education Foundation announced the launch of ‘AI Saathi for Educators’ in Mantralaya recently.
The AI Saathi coursewas launched by Education Minister Dadaji Bhuse. The launch was attended by the Chief Secretary of School Education and Sports Department Ranjit Singh Deval, Education Commissioner Sachindra Pratap Singh, Director of SCERT Dr. Hemant Vasekar, President of Maharashtra State Examination Council, Nandkumar Bedse, Director of Secondary Education Mahesh Palkar, Director of Primary Education Sharad Gosavi, Deputy Director of SCERT Varsharani Bhopale, Sub-division Chief Rajendra Wakade, Dr. Sandip Mulay, Deputy HOD, IT Department and Alka Pagare, Milind Pandey and Deepak Pathak on behalf of Kotak Education Foundation.
Key members of the core project development team who championed the initiative also include Dr. Kamaladevi Awate, Joint Director, Jyoti Shinde, Deputy Director, IT Department and Nivas Kamble, Superintendent, IT Department. A first-of-its-kind structured professional development program designed to build foundational Artificial Intelligence (AI) literacy among teachers, ‘AI Saathi for Educators’ enables meaningful integration of AI in education.
AI Saathi is the first virtual course to be selected as a mandatory training programme under the Maharashtra State School Education Department’s online training policy. As part of the state’s 20-hour mandatory online professional development framework, the AI Saathi course has been allotted four hours of certified training.
The course will be compulsory for approximately 7.5 lakh teachers and officers across Maharashtra, covering educators from Grades 1 to 12. According to SCERT, AI Saathi was selected from a pool of 10 courses submitted for evaluation, marking a significant milestone and recognition of Kotak Education Foundation’s contribution towards AI-enabled teacher capacity building in the state.
