Patna, Oct. 5 (PTI): All untrained teachers in the country will be trained by the end of March 2019 in the elementary education system, Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha today said.
If untrained teachers - be it in private or government schools - fail to get training, then their service as a teacher will cease to exist, the Minister of State for Human Resource Development said.
“The HRD ministry has taken a decision that it is mandatory to get training for all the untrained teachers who are in our elementary education system. As per RTE Act, all untrained teachers had to be imparted training by the end of 2015 but the target could not be achieved,” Kushwaha said.
Keeping in mind the fact that a large number of untrained teachers are still working in the country, he said, the government brought an amendment to the RTE Act in the last session of Parliament giving an opportunity to all the untrained teachers to get training being carried out by the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS).
“If anyone (untrained teacher) fails to get training by the end of March 31, 2019, then their service as a teacher will cease to exist - be it in private or government school- as the government has taken a decision to make training mandatory for both private and government schools...There will be no untrained teacher in the country by March 2019,” the minister said.
Stating that NIOS has been asked to prepare training course to impart training to all, Kushwaha said that around 15 lakh - 14,97,859 precisely - untrained teachers had registered themselves with the NIOS to get the in-service training course done during which teachers will not have to take leave.
It will be an on-line training course during which every teacher will have to put in at least three hours for the course, he said adding that of the 15 lakh candidates, who had registered themselves till September 30, 2017, the highest number of candidates of 2.85 lakh were from Bihar.
He said unless and until the quality of teacher was good, the quality of education could not be improved. There were around 10 lakh vacancies of teachers across the country while two lakh posts of teachers were lying vacant in Bihar.
Kushwaha, who is also Rashtriya Lok Samata Party chief, said that the party was organising a six-day road show to galvanise support for the ‘Shiksha Sudhar Sankalp Mahasammelan’ which would be held at Gandhi Maidan on October 15 in the state capital.
The road show, which will start from October 7 at Kurtha in Arwal district, will pass through 15 districts before culminating in Patna on October 12, he said adding that his objective was to make the issue of “education and its condition” a point of debate and discussion among all sections of the society.
