Team Herald

PANJIM: With the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) making March 2019 the deadline for untrained elementary teachers to get trained, Directorate of Education (DoE) on Tuesday said that it has received more than 100 percent registrations for the online course.

The Education Department, acting on MHRD orders, had issued a circular stating that untrained elementary teachers of aided and unaided schools need to acquire the requisite professional qualification of diploma in elementary education (DElEd) by 2019 to qualify to teach at the elementary level failing which the candidate would face disqualification.

Speaking to Herald, Education Director G P Bhat said, “Goa is the first state to receive more than 100 percent registrations for SWAYAM which is an online portal for the online course through NIOS. As per the U-dice data, Goa had 447 untrained teachers from unaided schools who have all already registered making the enrollment 100 percent, but with para-teachers and others the figures have crossed the 447 mark and reached 889.”

“As per the circular from MHRD, all unqualified in-service teachers in government, government-aided, unaided, special schools, who failed to enroll on or before September 15 were liable for removal or dismissal procedure initiated against them,” Bhat said.

He added that there are about 446 untrained teachers in Goa, most of who were teaching in unaided schools and that there are no untrained teachers at government schools in the State while the aided ones had hardly 30 untrained teachers.

The MHRD decision had come after the amendment to the Section 23(2) of the RTE Act to extend the period of training of untrained teachers to March 31, 2019. However, the circular also states that the completion of the DElEd will not confer upon the teachers a right to claim regularisation.