National   

Address deficiency in teaching quality: PM

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday made out a strong case for restoring the prestige and status of the teaching profession.

Addressing the National Education Day celebrations to commemorate the birth anniversary of the first Union Education Minister, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Dr. Singh dwelt upon the difficulties being faced by his government in finding teachers for the newly created institutions of higher education.

While referring to the shortage of faculty at every stage of education, the Prime Minister focused on the difficulty in finding top-level professors and lecturers in the newly created Indian Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, and other such institutions. “This state of affairs cannot be allowed to persist, and I urge all of you to work to address these problems of deficiency in the quality of teaching in our schools, in our colleges and in our universities,” Dr. Singh said.

Reaffirming his government’s commitment to education, Dr. Singh said the Right to Education (RTE) was one such step, but was quick to point out that its implementation depended equally on expansion of educational infrastructure and availability of trained and qualified teachers. “The RTE alone would require an additional one million teachers,” hesaid.

Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said the RTE would take quality education to about 160 million students who were presently out of school.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Address deficiency in teaching quality: PM
Congress can emerge as an alternative in U.P.
Only combined election results matter: Congress
Violence continues near Lalgarh
Constitution Bench to decide on judicial legislation
“Joint operations will continue”
People are for our alliance: Pranab
Rajnath meets Bhagwat over party’s future
Protect environment: Dalai Lama
Spanish tribute
Unseasonal rain threatens crops
Entries invited from media persons
Jairam points out ‘gross violations’ in dam project
Wage board talks
Cyclone weakens, Gujarat withdraws high alert

Copyright © 2009, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu