SHILLONG, July 4: Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma on Tuesday requested the Centre to allow one-time training for a large number of untrained elementary school teachers of the state.
Meghalaya has a huge backlog of untrained teachers due to limited institutional facilities, he told Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan during a meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday.
In a letter addressed to Pradhan, Sangma underlined the shortage of institutional facilities in Meghalaya, adding that the state has only five Colleges of Teacher Education offering only 350 seats annually against 5,548 secondary and 2,043 higher secondary teachers who are untrained.
The state evidently has a very low capacity for carrying out (Bachelor of Education) B.Ed courses, which is presently a minimum pre-service professional qualification for secondary and higher secondary teachers, the chief minister said.
Sangma said that the Diploma in Elementary Education programme has been of immense support to Meghalaya for bridging the backlog of untrained teachers, wherein 34,730 elementary teachers attended the offline course successfully from 2013 to 2019.
Despite these efforts, the state to date has 18,900 untrained elementary teachers. The state has only seven DIETs and one Teacher Training Centre with a total intake of 550 trainees per academic session, thereby posing a huge challenge to bridging the gap, he pointed out.
The chief minister asked Pradhan to allow the state government to clear the backlog as a one-time amnesty programme for the secondary, higher secondary in-service teachers under the IGNOU programme for B.Ed and for the elementary in-service teachers under the NIOS programme for Diploma in Elementary Education – both in distance learning mode – as a special case.
Informing the union minister that the state government is preparing to implement the NEP in its entirety, Sangma sought the Centre’s assistance in improving school infrastructure, appointing teachers, developing pedagogy resource training, etc.
Sangma also requested Pradhan to reconsider the funding pattern under SSA for letting the state comply with the NEP-2020 aims and objectives.
Sangma further requested Pradhan to issue necessary directions to the Ministry of Education and NTA to conduct a special CUET examination for those students of Meghalaya who missed out due to the allotment of CUET centres outside the state.
“We have requested the Centre to consider setting up CUET centres in all 12 districts of Meghalaya in institutions that possess adequate infrastructure,” he said.
For the immediate attention of the Centre, the state government suggested that the CUET centres be set up in Shillong, Tura, Jowai, Nongstoin and Williamnagar.
