With untrained teachers affecting the quality of school education, the HRD Ministry on Tuesday made it mandatory for every teacher to undergo training and seek certification from a Central agency to remain in the profession.
A quality programme of National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) for in-service untrained teachers training Diploma in Elementary Education (D.El.Ed) was launched by HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar. Javadekar said that the all untrained teachers are to be trained by 2019.
"Teachers and quality education are the rights of the students. Innovation and best practices will ensure that the best minds are able to innovate in the country and therefore NIOS has taken a step in this direction to get engaged at the grass root level. He added, the Government is committed to improve the education system and will be training approximately 15 lakh untrained teachers by March 31, 2019," Javadekar said.
The Teacher Training Programme is designed for all untrained Government/ Government-aided/Private- unaided recognised in- service untrained teachers of Elementary Schools and 15 lakh (approx) teachers have been enrolled so far. The teachers will get diploma after the successful completion of the course. "It is an initiative in Online and Distance learning (ODl) mode of NIOS for upgrading the professional competence and Information, Communication based capacity building for teachers. With an objective of enhancing quality, NIOS is focusing its attention on the quality and excellence in the training aspects of in service teachers of Govt/Govt aided /Private unaided recognised schools across the Country. It is important that trainings are put in place to help develop skills through their job and to retain knowledge, skills need to be refreshed on regular basis," said HRD Ministry official.