Work ethics required in teaching profession to inspire others, Nagaland teachers told

Our Correspondent
Kohima, Nov. 25 (EMN): Amid rampant practice of proxy teaching in Nagaland government schools, Commissioner and Secretary, School Education, SCERT and Economics and Statistics, Government of Nagaland, Kevileno Angami, on Friday asked the faculty of educational institutions to have work ethics in order to instill values and inspire others.

Addressing the first general conference of All Nagaland District Institute of Education and Training Faculty Association (ANDIETFA) at Capital Convention Centre, Kohima, the official told the members of the association that they are the educator of teachers, who will nurture the future through the students.

She added that the role and responsibility of ‘teacher educators’ is enormous and as they endowed to nurture the future.

While thanking the teacher educators for the paradigm shift they have brought about in the education sector, she urged them to continue to inspire and teach the children according to the National Education Policy (NEP); to embrace tolerance, have ethics and imbibe moral values besides the curriculum and pedagogy.

Pointing out that proxy teaching and absenteeism are rampant in government schools, she said this is happening because the teachers do not realise their roles, undermine the significance of their profession and absence of work ethics. She said the teachers need to be taught these ideals.

Responding to the representation submitted by the ANDIETFA, the official asserted that there are eight District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) institutes in the state and the civil works for three institutes have been completed and some are in the pipeline.

She expressed the need to have more such institutes, considering the importance of training teachers.

1675 untrained teachers in state

Providing status of education in the state as per UDISE data, Temsunaro Aier, Mission Director, Samagra Shiksha Nagaland, informed that the state has 1770 (GPS-1032) government schools having primary section with 9337 primary teachers, out of which 1675 are still not trained.

She updated that out of about 164324 students enrolled in government schools from pre-primary to Class 12, as many as 39372 are in pre-primary and 67368 from classes 1 to 5, which takes the total number of students in these two sections to 106740 or 65% of enrolment in the government schools.

“This is a clear indication of how important it is for us to provide quality primary education to ensure a better future for our people,” she asserted.

She informed that the National Achievement Survey (NAS) by the Ministry of Education has released the state’s report on Foundational Learning Study (FLS) conducted in 2022, which was done to assess the achievement level of children in the foundational stage, and the state’s overall achievement in FLS was just 28%, which is the second lowest in the country.

She added that COVID-19 pandemic had affected the state in the last 2 years but that was experienced throughout the world and not only Nagaland.

Towards this, she asked the teachers and officials to step up from their comfort zone and work hard to bring about a positive transformation in the education system.

Director of SCERT, Nagaland, N Chumchanbeni Patton, in her address, highlighted the significance and the introduction of DIET. She said ‘teacher education’ has always been one of the most significant components of SCERT and DIETs, pointing out that the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 puts forth many policy changes concerning teachers and teacher education.

She said that the NEP, recognising the ‘power of teacher’, had brought about changes and `teaching’ has emerged as an attractive profession.

She added that it proposes several reforms to empower teachers and ‘restore the high respect and status’ to this profession, hoping that it would eventually attract the best minds and talent to choose teaching as their profession.

The official said that with the successful introduction of the National Curriculum Framework (NCF)-2005, National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education (NCFTE) 2009, and Right to Education Act (RTE), 2009, there has been a slow paradigm shift in the system of teacher education in India.

She observed that over time, the focus of the system has been shifting from disciplinarian and rote memorisation to a collaborative construction of knowledge.

She added that following the NCF 2005 and NCFTE, 2009, the teacher education strategy is aimed at instilling the teachers with skills to become facilitators of knowledge rather than gatekeepers of information as well as to make teaching less textbook-oriented and to connect knowledge to life outside the school.

The director said that with the implementation of NEP 2020, DIETs have a huge role to play in bringing about success in the educational reforms and in enhancing the quality of teacher education as well as to meet the requirements of teacher preparation process, with a complete paradigm shift in the mechanism and processes. She added that DIETs and SCERT along with other stakeholders and academic bodies need to work collaboratively.

The programme was chaired by ANDIETFA President, Kenilo Semp, welcome address delivered by Lothunglo Humtsoe, Information Secretary ANDIETFA.

Earlier in the programme, Kevileno Angami released the ‘Action Research’ of the eight DIETs in the state and also inaugurated the Teaching Learning Materials (TLM) and Life Skills Products Exhibition in the presence of Principal Director of School Education, Thavaseelan K and other officials.

In the exhibition, DIET Chiechama won the first prize, while DIET Zunheboto won second place and DIET Mokokchung third.

Representation

In a representation submitted to the Commissioner and Secretary, School Education, SCERT and Economics and Statistics, the ANDIETFA requested the state government to establish DIET centres in all the districts, besides the existing eight.

It stated there was proposal to establish DIETs in three districts, namely Kiphire, Longleng and Peren as well as eight BITEs during 2012- 2013 in order to cater to the needs of the elementary school teachers and also to ensure upward mobility of the DIET employees, but nothing had been done on this.

The association also expressed the urgent need to upgrade some of the existing DIETs to that of multidisciplinary institutions and offer four-year B.Ed integrated course, which will become minimal qualification for school teachers by 2030.