Osmania and Notre Dame team up to add emotional learning to teacher education
Hyderabad: Future teachers in Hyderabad may soon be trained not just in pedagogy, but in how to support students emotionally, which could change classroom dynamics across government schools. As part of a new partnership, Osmania University and the University of Notre Dame (USA) will jointly work to embed Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) into B.Ed programmes through a whole-school approach.
“This MoU provides an excellent opportunity to deliver Social and Emotional Learning through a school-wide perspective,” said OU Vice Chancellor Prof. Kumar Molugaram. He said both institutions would also collaborate on joint research and urged them to publish findings internationally.
Notre Dame’s Global Centre for the Development of the Whole Child will help develop the curriculum and training methods, in an effort to make classrooms more responsive to students’ emotional needs, particularly in early and middle school years. “We are excited to work with India, a rapidly developing nation,” said Prof Neil Boothby, who leads the centre. “This agreement offers abundant opportunities to enhance training skills and conduct excellent research.”
The MoU was signed on Wednesday by OU registrar Prof. G. Naresh Reddy and Prof. Boothby, in the presence of the education faculty, college heads, and members of the MoU committee. Prof. Ravindranath K Murthy, Principal of OU’s College of Education, said the focus would be on building a practical mechanism for rollout. “This is not just theory, we’re working on implementation, training, and structured follow-through.”
The partnership also includes plans for faculty and student exchanges, and research that will examine how emotional learning impacts teacher performance and student outcomes. OU officials say the goal is to equip educators with tools to manage not only academics, but the growing emotional and behavioural needs of students in today’s classrooms.
