Nearly 15 lakh "untrained" teachers, inlcuding over 10 lakh from private schools, have enrolled for a training course by the HRD Ministry -- a last chance for them to obtain credentials for retaining their jobs.
The highest number of applications has been received from Bihar with over 2.8 lakh candidates, followed by Uttar Prdaesh (1.95 lakh), Madhya Pradesh (1.91 lakh), West Bengal (1.69 lakh) and Assam (1.51 lakh).
The number of teachers from Delhi who have registered for the course are 1018.
The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) has designed a one-time Diploma in Elementary Education (D.El.Ed) course for in-service untrained teachers training.
The HRD ministry had earlier announced that untrained teachers have time till 2019 to complete the course and obtain the credentials.
"Quality education is the right of students and in order to ensure that we need to have quality teachers. NIOS has developed the course for upgrading the professional competence and information and communication based capacity building for teachers," Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said at the launch of the course.
"The course will be offered through 'Swayam' a platform for online education and imparting knowledge through Dish TV. This is for the first time in the world that such high number of applications have been recieved for an online course," he added.
According to NIOS data, a total of 14.97 lakh applications have been recieved, out of which, 12.29 lakh candidates have already made the payment. The payment window is open till October 5.
"Among the over 12 lakh untrained teachers who have enrolled for the course, 9.25 lakh are from private schools and 3.53 lakh are employed in government schools," NIOS Chairman CB Sharma said.
A mobile application has also been developed to help teachers seek any clarifications and solutions. The course which began today, will be spread over four semesters and will have total 1080 lectures which will be available in 10 languages.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)