BHUBANESWAR: Untrained elementary school teachers, who do not have minimum qualification mandated under the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009, would not be allowed to continue in service after April 1, 2019.According to the School and Mass Education department, the process for dismissal will be initiated against such teachers. Stating that this will be the last chance to acquire the requisite minimum professional qualification, a department official maintained that it is mandatory for all in-service untrained teachers to undertake Diploma in Elementary Education (D.El.Ed) programme only through open and distance learning (ODL) from the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS).
Registration of unqualified and untrained teachers in the NIOS portal should be completed between August 16 and September 15, 2017, a release issued by the School and Mass Education Department said and added that the unqualified teachers in Government, Government aided and private schools who fail to enrol on or before September 15, 2017 would face dismissal from service.The Director of State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) has been declared as the nodal officer to facilitate the conduct of the training programme. Untrained teachers of the unaided private schools, which have got recognition/no-objection certificate (NOC) from the competent authority for the posts, can also register for the NIOS. Besides, for teachers in private schools, a certificate from the principal will be taken to ensure that the teacher is serving in the school.
The release said all teachers can access free instructions through the SWAYAM online portal arranged by the NIOS. Besides, the NIOS is making separate arrangement for physical contact programme which is an integral part of the D.El.Ed course. The NIOS will also provide necessary support to SCERT responsible for arranging the study centres and requisite teacher educators for the purpose.
Sources said a broad strategy to complete the training of all such in-service untrained teachers by March 31, 2019 has been proposed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). The State Government will also appoint a coordinator to facilitate conduct of the programme and for continuous engagement with MHRD and NIOS.