HRD Ministry’s Special Course for Untrained Teachers Receives Massive Response
- States of Bihar, UP, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal recorded the maximum number of applications with almost 14.98 lakh teachers enrolling for it in total.
- Courses are offered through ‘Swayam’ platform for MOOC courses.
The special course for untrained teachers launched by Ministry of Human Resource and Development has been receiving a massive response. So far, over 14.97 lakh ‘untrained teachers’ (including 9.25 lakh from private schools and 3.53 lakh from government schools) have enrolled for the special training course.
Earlier, the HRD Ministry directed all the untrained teachers to emphasise on the need to complete a specifically course designed by the NIOS or National Institute of Open Schooling – D.EI.Ed (Diploma in Elementary Education) and obtain the mandatory credentials by 2019.
According to the official data of HRD Ministry, Bihar recorded the highest number of applicants (2.8 lakh), followed by Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh with 1.95 lakh and 1.91 lakh respectively. Over 1.69 lakh, untrained teachers from West Bengal registered for the course.
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NIOS has designed and developed the course with a motive to upgrade professional competence, information and communication-based capacity building for teachers.
A senior official associated with HRD Ministry explained the specially designed course for untrained teachers would be offered through ‘SWAYAM’, a unique platform for online education and knowledge with the help of a Dish TV. HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar expressed his happiness on the massive response for online courses.
With an objective to clarify the doubts of the teachers, a mobile application has been developed by the HRD Ministry and NIOS. The course for untrained teachers formally began on October 3, 2017, with Mr. Prakash Javadekar launching it.
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The course will have four semesters including 1,080 lectures which are available in ten languages.
The applicants who are aspiring to pursue the specially designed course for untrained teachers must have 50% of marks in Class 12. Those who fell short of 50% of marks in Class 12 can appear for an entrance exam conducted by NIOS in which the candidates must score 50% of marks to be eligible for applying to the course.