Bhubaneswar, March 17: Come April and government teachers will be back in classrooms — this time not to teach but to be taught.

The school and mass education department is all set to start an integrated training programme for at least 1,56,618 in-service teachers from April 23. The special classes will help teachers to brush up the knowledge in their subject of specialisation and spoken English.

Called Samarthaya, the programme aims to raise the standard of teaching in government schools. “The project has been designed exclusively to improve teaching skills of teachers. This has been made mandatory with the implementation of the Right to Education Act. Separate training will be imparted to elementary and secondary level teachers,” said a senior official in the SME department.

“We will, however, ensure that no school remains closed during the training campaign,” he added.

The programme includes training for teachers of different subjects. Teachers have been asked to select the subjects they want to be trained in. The spoken English training will be coordinated by the English Language Training Institute. While the elementary-level teachers will be given 20 days of training, secondary-level teachers will be imparted five days of training. During the 20-day training programme for elementary school teachers, 10 days will be devoted to text books they use to teach in school and the remaining period will see them study the subject as a whole.

One teacher from each government school, including schools under the SC/ST department, will be given training. The teachers will attend classes at the nearest block headquarters. All 30 districts have already prepared training calendars for 12 months.

The department has selected the best teachers in the district as resource persons to train the teachers. About 7,500 teachers have been selected. The resource persons are also undergoing training. The campaign will kick off on April 23.

“We have also asked the State Council of Education Research and Training to prepare a directory of trainers so that their services can be utilised later,” said the official.

“The training programmes will not be held in May-June and September because of summer vacations and the SHSC examinations respectively,” the official said. At the end of the programme, teachers will also required to appear for a test.