MHRD rolls out schemes for higher education teachers' training

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) on Tuesday launched two training programmes for teachers in the realm of higher education, aimed to keep them updated on the latest developments in the world and to inculcate in them administrative skills to run their institutes.

Leadership for Academicians Programme (LEAP) and Annual Refresher Programme in Teaching (ARPIT) were launched here by Junior HRD Minister Satya Pal Singh.

LEAP will be a three-week training programme (including one week training abroad) to train a second-tier of academics likely to take up the reins of the institute in future.

Its implementation will be done through 15 National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) ranked institutions, which include IIT Kanpur and Roorkee, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University, TISS Mumbai, and Banaras Hindu University.

Among the foreign universities are Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, LSE and Oxford, the ministry said in a statement.

"There are good academics, who are not good in administration... most students who come take admission scoring above 90 per cent. They will do good even without teachers. So what's the accountability of teachers? How are they adding value to the students' lives. I would request academics to enrol for the course," HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said in a video message at the launch.

For ARPIT, a refresher training will be given to 15 lakh faculty members in higher education through the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) using government platform SWAYAM. The government has identified 75 discipline-specific institutes, which it has named National Resource Centres (NRCs), to prepare training material.

These NRCs are located in institutions like IITs, IISC, NITs and state and central universities.

The government said it is expecting to give refresher training to at least 13 lakh of the 15 lakh teachers enrolled as such in higher education.

All teachers who successfully complete the refresher training will be certified. The courses will be open from November 1, 2018 to February 28, 2019.

"One must always stay abreast of the latest happening of the world... teachers who do not update themselves can't guide students," Javadekar said on the refresher training.

-- IANS

vn/prs