The lackadaisical attitude of private school owners in providing details of the untrained teachers deployed by them could prove costly for these teachers. Further the education department has threatened that if any school is found guilty of hiding the data of untrained teachers, then its recognition could be cancelled.
There are more than 8000 small and large private schools.
In a recent order the union government said that the teachers teaching primary students should compulsorily have the Diploma in Elementary Education (DElEd) by March 2019 failing which they would be removed from their jobs.
On the directive of the union government the state education department has asked heads of all schools to submit the list of the untrained teachers so that they are registered in the National Open School (NOS) for DElEd course. However the private schools where large numbers of untrained teachers are deployed have failed to respond to the department’s directive. It is learnt that not even a single school has responded to the directive of the department till Saturday.
In such a situation the fate of thousands of primary teachers who don’t have the requisite qualifications hangs in balance. It is clear that if these teachers fail to register themselves in the distant education diploma in elementary education course offered by the National Open School soon than they would not be able to complete the two year course by the year 2019.
Interestingly most of the teachers working in private schools are not even aware of the government order. “I don’t know about compulsion of any DElEd course. I have done Bachelor in Education (BEd) and teaching primary classes,’’ said Nisha Rawat a resident of Jogiwala in Dehradun.
The order of DElEd for primary teachers is applicable to all primary teachers of government, semi government, private and aided schools. The teachers who have BTC certificates would be exempted from this compulsion. The teachers that are teaching the classes from I to VIII come under the ambit of the order.
Interestingly there were many Bachelor of Education (B Ed) qualified teachers in the state government teaching primary classes; after the mandate of D.El.Ed qualification by National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE), the education department prudently decided to impart a special D.El.Ed training to such teachers. However thousands of primary teachers deployed in the private schools are bereft of this qualification and lack of communication further compounds their problems.