Chandigarh,The state education department today finalised a major re-training programme of over 1,01,983 teachers teaching in schools of the state to prepare them for the emerging challenges of cyber age besides to equip them with new educational tools. The programme was finalised in the meeting of State Advisory Committee of education department presided over by Education Minister Dr Daljit Singh Cheema in which Members of Punjab Legislative Assembly Mr Chatin Singh Samao, Mr Joginder Singh Jindu and Mrs Sukhjit Kaur Shahi, besides experts from education, psychology, sociology and teaching techniques department shared their notes for new training modules.
Focussing on the re-training of teachers to keep a pace with modern day requirements, the education minister said that it was matter of great regret that some teachers have not got any training after getting recruited 20-30 years ago and were still forcing rota technology in the mindset of students. He said that if Punjab has to keep pace with the developing economies like USA, Canada, Australia, it would have to focus on re-training its teachers with new educational tools.
Dr. Cheema asked the department to finalise a training schedule of over 1 lakh teachers in a phased manner besides ensuring that normal teaching work of students especially in the rural areas do not suffer.
Participating in the debate, the members of SAC said that in the age of internet and connectivity of every village with 4G connection, we should make optimum utilisation of new technology and training programme should be both online and offline. They opined that while structuring their training modules and training kits, the focus should be on improving the psychological makeup of students and redrafting the training kits according to the modern teaching tools.
Thanking the SAC for their valuable inputs for improving education system in the state, Principal Secretary Education Mr C Roul assured the Education Minister that the department would soon put up a training schedule of teachers, DEO’s and administrative staff in next fortnight besides online monitoring of ongoing training programmes throughout the state.
Prominent among others who were present in the meeting included DGSE Mr. GK Singh, Special Secretary Mr. Gurdeep Singh, DPI (Secondary Education) Mr. Kamal Garg, DPI (Elementary Education) Mrs. Darshan Kaur and Director SCERT Mrs. Pankaj Sharma.