J&K: 5,000 undergraduate teachers to be given training

The National Institute of Open Schools (NIOS) will train more than 5,000 untrained undergraduate teachers from Jammu and Kashmir in the next two years to provide better education facilities in the school across the state.
The education department has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the NIOS under which the Institute will train around 5,000 untrained undergraduate teachers from J&K in two-year diploma in elementary education through distance mode.
The department has signed several MoUs with National Institute of Open Schools (NIOS), National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) to transform the state's schools into strategically and operationally effective resources and create a new job-intensive educational system in the state that J&K desperately needs.

According to Education Minister Naeem Akhtar, the new initiatives are aimed at doing away with the academic stagnation in the state's educational institutions so that these can churn-out productive assets instead of adding to the number of educated unemployed youth.
"Through various technology-driven interventions being made in the education sector, we want to turn-around the state's academic scenario, which has become redundant over a period of time in such a way that it encourages young people to create their own job opportunities," said Akhtar.
He said there is no longer a safe formula for the kind of education youth should undertake in order to get a job.

"The main obstacle to youth employment is lack of preparedness for the unconventional economic environment they find themselves in once they finish their studies," Akhtar said.
The job market that young people have learnt about and knew through their parents doesn't exist anymore as there has been huge transformation of the same with winds of economic liberalization and globalization sweeping the world, he added.