20% primary teachers fail qualification norms

NEW DELHI: One year after the Right to Education was notified, one in every five teachers in elementary schools does not meet the specified qualification norms. A fact that is a “matter of concern” for the ministry as it oversees the implementation of the RTE.

Faced with a little more 6 lakh underqualified teachers in the school system, the human resource development ministry is stepping in to work out a solution. This presents an enormous practical problem. The ministry realises that it is not possible to pull out 6 lakh teachers from the schools and ask them to get the requisite qualifications before they are allowed into a classroom, said an official.

The ministry therefore needs to consider the distance education option to ensure that these teachers receive the requisite qualifications and training without completely disrupting the teaching process. The ministry is looking at the open university to address the training requirements. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act gives a five-year window of opportunity for all teachers to acquire the requisite qualifications.

Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal have the highest percentage of untrained teachers. Coincidentally, these states also have inadequate teacher education capacity. This is because fewer private institutions, which form the bulk of the teacher education capacity in the country have been set up in these states.

As a result, to meet the requirements laid out in the law, the government will have to turn to central and state universities. To ensure that the teachers receive the proper qualifications, the ministry will need to identify open universities which can deliver.

IGNOU, which offers a teacher training course, is one option for these teachers. However, given that over 6 lakh teachers need qualifications, the ministry is planning to rope in state universities as well. There is precedent for this as well. The Madhya Pradesh government, when it had to ensure qualifications for a large number of its para teachers, asked Bhoj University to undertake a distance education programme.

The ministry official said they would consider getting state universities to step in to help training the teachers. The ministry is now consulting the National Council for Teacher Education on revising its norms to adapt it for the open learning system. This would involve working out contact sessions, faculty and course material. It will also need to work out norms for giving credit for actual teaching experience, which these teachers have.