Sonali Sharma
To train all untrained teachers working in Government and private schools, union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar directed the Education Departments across the country to focus on training of untrained teachers in the year 2017. It was important for all untrained teachers to join the training programme and those who did not enroll for the training programme will lose their jobs by March 2019. The undergraduate and graduate teachers have to register themselves on the web portal of National Institute of open schooling where they can get the course learning material free of cost. Consequently all the education ministers of the country directed the teachers working under them to enroll for training. The undergraduate teachers were told to register for D.Ed. (Diploma in Education) at NIOS and graduate teachers were directed to enroll themselves for B.Ed (Bachelors in Education) course in any recognised university within the country. In our state (Now. UT), Department of School Education facilitated the teachers by signing an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with Indira Gandhi National open University (IGNOU) for training of untrained graduate teachers. But unfortunately the programme did not work as per the required guidelines. The graduate teachers were enrolled by IGNOU in January 2018 batch on the directions of School Education Department, Govt. of Jammu and Kashmir. The minimum duration of the programme was 2 years. The J&K Samgra Shiksha was designated as nodal agency to facilitate the State Government in implementing the programme. The programme was a judicious mix of theory and practical courses and aimed at facilitating acquisition of skills and competencies necessary for teaching learning at secondary or senior secondary level.
IGNOU allotted programme study centers (PSCs) for all learners of B.Ed programme under IGNOU-SSA project for all districts of the state. The information regarding allotment of programme study centers (PSCs) was communicated to all learners through SMS alerts. Centre-wise lists of learners were sent to the Directorate of Samagra Shiksha for onward dissemination of information to the learners through Chief Education Officers and Zonal Education Officers concerned. The self learning material was dispatched to the residences of individual learners for the first year in the months of June & July 2018. But it was decided in the meeting of June 13, 2019 which was convened at IGNOU, Maidan Garhi, New Delhi in which the officials from the IGNOU Maidan Garhi, New Delhi, Samagra Shiksha, J&K and Directorate of School Education, Govt. of Jammu and Kashmir participated, that the study material for second year courses will be sent directly from IGNOU Head Quarters to the programme study centers for the allotted number of learners. The learners need to approach the allotted programme study centers (PSCs) for study material of second year courses. But unfortunately, there are complaints of learners from many districts that they haven’t got the study material at proper time.
However a large number of learners did not get their study material from the allotted Programme study centers owing to non-coordination between different agencies responsible for SSA-IGNOU Project. The designated PSCs were required to conduct workshop based activities, practical- oriented assignments and assignments based on theory courses. They were also responsible for counseling sessions for the learners during weekends. Preferably learners were supposed to attend workshops during summer vacation to avoid any loss to the students. But unfortunately the Internship-I and Workshop-I which were supposed to be conducted during Ist year were conducted in the second year and that too, during the mid session thus hampering the overall teaching learning process in majority of the state run schools. The schools falling in the rural areas were the worst hit. The two main consequences of the mismanagement of project were firstly the teacher trainees were not trained properly as per the designed syllabus of B.Ed. Secondly students suffered in absence of teachers, who were busy in attending workshops and internships.
The learners gave the exams for first year without the preparation of assignments, Internship-I, Workshop-I and no counseling session was organized for the learners. Now exams are a couple of weeks ahead and the learners are moving from pillar to post, but there is not even a single word from the concerned authorities regarding 2nd year assignments, workshop-II (12 days), Internship-II and counseling sessions for learners. What the untrained teachers of J&K will acquire by such training is a million dollar question?
(The author is a Lecturer in Education)
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