Few takers for diploma for ‘untrained’ teachers, govt extends deadline

However, a day before the original September 15 deadline, only about 2,100 teachers from Maharashtra had enrolled themselves for the online course, education department officials told The Indian Express.

With very few ‘untrained’ primary school teachers paying heed to its instruction to enroll for an online diploma course before September 15, the government was on Thursday forced to extend the deadline by two weeks. These teachers can now apply for the course — a Diploma in Elementary Education, or D.El.Ed — offered by the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), by September 30.

Teachers, who teach primary school classes up to Standard V, are expected to have a D.El.Ed over and above any qualification that they may possess. In the absence of a D.El.Ed, primary school teachers are considered ‘untrained’, even if the teacher holds a Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) or Master of Education (M.Ed) degree.

A month ago, on the instructions of the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development, the Maharashtra government had sent out a circular stating that primary teachers without D.El.Ed, the minimum qualification prescribed under the Right to Education Act 2009, would not be allowed to continue in service beyond April 1, 2019.

Teachers teaching in government-aided, unaided and special schools were given an opportunity to enroll into the online D.El.Ed course on the NIOS website by September 15.

There are an estimated over 5.1 lakh untrained teachers in government and government-aided schools across the country. The exact numbers for Maharashtra are not known but it is believed to be in several thousands.

However, a day before the original September 15 deadline, only about 2,100 teachers from Maharashtra had enrolled themselves for the online course, education department officials told The Indian Express.

“The teachers have already been informed, through circulars and even public advertisements, that they will lose their jobs if they don’t take up these degrees (diplomas). Despite these repeated reminders, if teachers do not enroll, then we would have no choice but to disqualify them from teaching jobs, since they do not fulfill the requirement of the RTE Act,” said Sunil Magar, director of Vidya Pradhikaran (formerly Maharashtra State Council of Education, Research and Training).

Meanwhile, school managements are up in arms against the new diktat of the government. Rajendra Singh, senior member of Independent English Schools Association (IESA), said that the decision to ask teachers, who already have qualifications like Ph.D or M.Ed, to do a diploma course was “surprising”.

“We don’t oppose the idea that a teacher should be trained, we don’t think that every graduate can teach. But if a teacher possesses a higher degree, like a M.Ed or a B.Ed, why should they go back and do a degree which one has to do after HSC? We don’t understand the logic,” he said.

Nandkumar Kakirde, director of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan schools across the city, said the government directive was a “mockery” of the education system. “How can teachers who are BA, MA, MEd be termed untrained and made to apply for lower degrees? A D.El.Ed certification does not make the candidate a good teacher, we have seen worse candidates through our hiring experience. The logic behind this diktat is not clear,” he said.