National Mission on Teachers and Training to be Launched to Improve Quality of Teachers and Teaching
The Minister of Human Resource Development, Dr. M.M. Pallam Raju today said that a National Mission on Teachers and Training will be launched which will lay down a roadmap to improve the quality of teachers and teaching thereby improving the educational delivery and learning outcomes in higher education institutions and added that a sum of Rs 100 crore has been provided in Annual Plan 2013-14.
The Minister further added that a major new initiative is the Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) of Rashtriya Uchhatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) which will be launched to provide financial assistance to State Instituions. The total outlay for the scheme in the XII Plan is Rs. 25,000 crore of which a sum of Rs 500 crore has been provided in Annual Plan 2013-14.
On the issue of social imbalances in higher education system, the Minister said that National initiative will be launched for greater inclusion of socially disadvantaged sections of SCs, STs, Minorities, Backward classes, girls and inclusion of persons with disabilities in higher education will be accorded priority.
Since the launch of Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) scheme on 1.1.2013, the Minister said that the Department of Higher Education has disbursed scholarships to 36060 students under ‘Universities / College Students’ and fellowship to 4971 students under ‘Fellowship Schemes of UGC’ and the amount has directly been transferred into the bank account of beneficiaries spread all over the country.
On the issue of elementary education the Minister said that thirteen states have asked for relaxation of guidelines in terms of qualification of teachers so that those states could have more number of teachers. He also expressed that untrained teachers in these states could be trained through distance education programme. There are 7.72lakh untrained teachers out of which 6 lakhs are being trained through this programme.
Regarding women’s education, he said that Sakshar Bharat Programme is being implemented to increase literacy level among women.
On Akash tablets, the Minister expressed that IIT Mumbai, has placed order for one lakh sets which are to be supplied by the end of this month. There is a gap in supply; the ministry is concentrating on content rather than hardware in order to let the people have choice about the set. The Ministry, he said wants to create enabling and conducive environment for technology based education.
Source: PIB News
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