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Government plans a second outing for retired teachers with pilot programme
19 states have expressed interest in the Governments pilot programme of letting retired teachers conduct co-scholastic programmes in schools.
Once a teacher, always a teacher will very soon be true for retired teachers if the pilot programme undertaken by the Central Government is a success. The Center is working on a programme that will involve retired government teachers and others to conduct co-scholastic activities in schools. Currently, guidelines are being developed jointly by the central and the state governments. This development was shared by Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Zubin Irani in a written reply to a Lok Sabha.
That this announcement has been received with enthusiasm is an understatement. "In a meeting of state education ministers on teacher education held in New Delhi on February 8, representatives of 19 States, namely, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Gujarat, Karnataka, Odisha, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Telangana, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Tripura, Goa, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi expressed their willingness to participate in the first phase," said a press note on the MHRD website.
In the same meeting, several steps for improvement of the quality of education were discussed. These include: internship for teacher education programmes in government schools; conduct of regional workshop for education administrators by UGC with modules developed by IIMs; and to constitute a committee to develop an accreditation framework for teacher education institutions.
The success of the program could mean a second innings for teachers who would like to continue to be associated with the profession of course with the added income. It could mean a second work force that could have the potential to bring about a co-scholastic revolution. Finally, this is a neat political spin in a year of state elections to target this influential vote bank of teachers.
