Naveen plea for teacher intake

Bhubaneswar, June 29: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik has sought the personal intervention of Union human resource development minister M.M. Pallam Raju to enhance the intake of teachers’ training institutions in the state from the current academic session.

In a letter to Raju, the chief minister said Odisha, which was the only state in the country not to have allowed TTIs to ensure quality, was facing a shortage of trained teachers both at elementary and secondary level.

The state has 73 TTIs with an intake of 4,390 teachers, against the required 5,000 per year. Given the shortage of trained teachers, the state requested the Centre to relax the norms for appointment of the untrained teachers. The relaxation, however, was only up to March 31 with the condition that the state government would take steps to increase the institutional capacity for training persons with required qualifications.

“Our proposal to increase intake capacity of the existing teachers training institutions during the academic session 2013-14 is pending with the National Council of Teacher Education. The Union ministry of human resource development has been requested for grant of extension of time for submission of hard copies of application forms,” the letter said.

“The state government has also given a commitment to make additional investment in infrastructure and recruitment of teachers for the proposed increase in intake. The Centre is required to play a supportive role in enabling the state government to expand the capacity for teachers training,” the chief minister stated.