About 42 per cent of the present 24,000 government teachers in Nagaland are untrained while 15 per cent schools, numbering 172, are being run by a single teacher, a major deterrent in achieving quality education in the state, Nagaland Minister for School Education and SCERT, Yitachu said this.
Inaugurating a two-day Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) sponsored National Seminar on "Quality Teacher Education: Issues and Challenges of two year Bachelor of Education (B. Ed)" at Nagaland University, Kohima Campus in Meriema today, the minister said that Right to Education (RTE) policy of the Central government has brought immense infrastructural improvements beside opening and upgradation of schools to reach each and every student.
This also created opportunities for recruitment of teachers.
However, he regretted that the process has also created a huge gap in imparting quality education to the students, which has led to rise in the number of school dropouts and drop in students' enrolment in government schools.
The minister said that the gap is also widening because of the high number of professionally unqualified teachers in the Education department as recruitment of teachers has become a way to solve unemployment problem rather then imparting quality education.
He also attributed the decline in quality education to the No Detention Policy, where students continue to get promoted to high classes despite poor performance.
The Minister said steps are being initiated in Nagaland to train all the untrained teachers.
In-service teachers are being allowed to undergo B.Ed training by employing substitute teachers by the government during their training period, he said.
Dean, Faculty of Education, Sri Venkateswara University, Andhra Pradesh, Prof P A Reddy delivering the keynote address stressed on the need to improve teachers' education programme.
He said that the programmes should be based on the need of the quality education of the particular state while teaching should not be a mere means of employment but a profession.
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