Bihar tops the list of untrained teachers who have applied for teacher training course with the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS).

Minister of state for HRD Upendra Kushwaha made this announcement on Thursday and said by March 2019, NIOS will give training to 2,85,234 teachers out of 14,57,859 nationally.

They all have applied for two-year diploma in elementary education because according to the new rule by the Union HRD, untrained teachers will not be allowed to teach either in private or government schools.

Kushwaha said the deadline to get the training was March 2015. However, the date was later extended to March 2019. 'The deadline was March 31, 2015. Despite that, many were left out, so an amendment was made in the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, and the period for training was extended for four years up to March 31, 2019. This is the minimum qualification a teacher should have,' Kushwaha said.

He said untrained teachers in schools will no longer be recognised as teachers if they do not go through this mandatory training by March 31, 2019. The last date of the registration for NIOS got over on September 30, 2017, itself.

Only those who have secured a minimum of 50 per cent marks in higher secondary will get the training.

Kushwaha said NIOS has also made a separate arrangement to meet that criteria and the teachers can take the higher secondary exam again to get the minimum marks.