BHUBANESWAR: Odisha will require over 50,000 teachers in 15 languages including English to implement the three-language formula as prescribed in the New Education Policy 2020. As per the assessment of the state, the requirement of Odia language teachers is 2,80,666 followed by 36,869 English and 2,232 Sanskrit teachers. The total requirement of language teachers in the state has been estimated at 3,31,250.
This was informed by Union Minister of State for Education Annapurna Devi to Lok Sabha. She was replying to a question by Chandra Sekhar Sahu of the BJD on the requirement of different language teachers for the implementation of NEP in Odisha.
The minister said that six states where Odia is taught as a medium of instruction have assessed their requirement of Odia teachers at 5,793. West Bengal has projected the highest number of 4,635 Odia teachers while Andhra Pradesh would require 518. Gujarat, where large number of Odia people are working, will require 213 teachers and Jharkhand’s requirement is 367.
Telengana bordering Odisha will require 54 teachers, including three in the lower primary level. Interestingly, Andaman and Nicobar needed six teachers to teach the Odia language. As per the state’s assessment, about 9,035 Hindi, 1,075 Urdu, 454 Telugu, 417 Nepali, 204 Punjabi, 196 Santhali, 86 Bengali, 29 Marathi, 28 Assamese, 13 Tamil, 11 each Kannada and Malayalam, and 10 Gujarati teachers will be required for Odisha to implement the three language policy in school-level.
The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, provides that wherever possible, the medium of instruction until at least Grade 5 but preferably till Grade 8 and beyond, is to be the mother tongue or local language. The policy suggested the states to enter into bilateral agreements to hire teachers in large numbers from each other to satisfy the three-language formula.
The Union minister said that the Centre has taken number of steps for implementation of NEP, 2020 including designing a suggestive implementation plan called Students’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement through Quality Education (SARTHAQ) and sharing it with states.