New Delhi: The declining level of learning outcome in classes has posed a major challenge before the country. Multiple factors are being attributed for this, including the quality of the faculty itself.
The draft National Education Policy-2019, which was presented to the Narendra Modi 2.0 government on its first day in office, has suggested far-reaching reforms in teacher training and recruitment, with emphasis on relieving them from other activities to focus only on classroom teaching.
Here are the recommendations of the draft policy, prepared by a committee headed by former ISRO chief K Kasturirangan.
1. Teachers should be relieved from performing government duties to help them invest more time amongst students.
2. They should not be engaged in election-related activities and cooking of midday meals. One of the main grievances of the teaching fraternity is that non-academic activities consume much of their time.
3. Regular transfers hamper continuity and flow of quality classroom teaching. Sudden and unfortunate transfers prevent the faculty from developing a steady relationship with the class. Therefore, “the harmful practice of excessive teacher transfers should be halted with immediate effect,” the committee has recommended.
4. Para-teacher systems across the country should be stopped by 2022. The committee is of the view that such a system cannot ensure long-term student-teacher relationship.
5. To get the best brains into the teaching profession, the committee has recommended a large number of “merit-based scholarships” across the country in “outstanding” four years integrated B.Ed programmes.
6. Learning outcome in rural areas had deteriorated abysmally in recent years. Therefore, to encourage rural postings, the committee has recommended incentives to teachers taking up a job in rural areas, especially in places facing teacher shortage.
7. Teacher eligibility test should be made mandatory for teacher recruitment, especially in private schools. In addition, for subject teachers, suitable National Testing Agency (NTA) test scores in the corresponding subjects will also be taken into account for recruitment,” the committee recommended.
8. Teachers should be given the flexibility of imparting learning in a way they find suitable to make the subject more interesting and develop interest among students.
9. The service conditions, teacher deployment, career management and professional development should be completely overhauled to restore the high stature of the teaching profession.
10. Periodic teacher training should be made mandatory to help the faculties keep themselves abreast with the latest teaching practices.
