HRD’s Teacher Education Programmes To Train 11 Lakh Teachers By March 2019

Parliament passes bill to allow 11 lakh RTE teachers time till 2019 to acquire required qualification

Come Gandhi Jayanti, the ministry of human resources development will start one of the largest teacher education programme across the country, aimed at training around 11.09 lakh untrained teachers by March 2019. The ministry, on Teachers’ Day, is also likely to kickstart the ambitious project of teaching 2,000 students of Kendriya Vidyalayas using tablets for science and mathematics subjects.

HRD minister Prakash Javadekar told TOI that teachers’ education was an important part of school education reforms and there were over 11 lakh untrained teachers in schools under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan – six lakh in government schools and five lakh in private ones. Earlier, under the RTE Act, they were supposed to complete diploma in elementary education by 2015.

Claiming that there would be no further extension and this was the last chance to train themselves or lose their jobs, Javadekar said, “We have extended the time up to 2019 as untrained teachers are an injustice to students. So, for the first time, we are going to train them through Swayam and Swayam Prabha, not through DEd or BEd colleges. We expect more than eight to nine lakh teachers to register, but the actual figure will be available on September 15.”

“We will start the courses on October 2 and will continue them till June 2018. Next year, it starts in July and it will go on till March 19, 2019. The programme includes 1,080 lectures and nine courses in 10 languages. Apart from online training there will also be a total of 24 face-to-face workshops during school holidays. For the first time, we are having this kind of technology-enabled teacher training for lakhs of teachers.”

The ministry is also planning to roll out tablet-based learning in KVs from September 5. The Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan submitted the proposal to the ministry in May and the pilot run will begin with students of Class IX or Class XI. “The idea is to supplement the knowledge the students get from their books in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects using technology,” said a ministry official.

Students will not only access reading material online but also submit their assignments for online evaluation. Over 2,000 students from KVs across 25 regions will be selected for the pilot. At least one school in every region will be covered by the initiative.

Based on the outcome of the experiment, the ministry will decide on incorporating the scheme into school education, in 2018.

KVS has already prepared the training module for teachers who will be part of the pilot run. The HRD ministry, it is learnt, will provide tablets free of cost to students. A student will be able to retain the device for two to four years, depending on which class he or she is in.

Respected Source – TOI