Register for 2nd yr BEd by Feb 20, teachers told

Vikas Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, February 10

To re-register for the second year of the BEd programme, the authorities have fixed February 20 as the deadline for the left-out, non-registered, untrained graduate government teachers pursuing Bachelor of Education (BEd) from the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA-IGNOU) project.

More than 19,000 untrained, graduate government teachers have been pursuing BEd from IGNOU after the Lok Sabha passed a Bill in July 2017 which offered teachers time till March 31, 2019, to acquire BElEd or Diploma in Elementary Education to hold their jobs as teachers.

The state education department had entered into a memorandum of cooperation (MoC) with IGNOU to register in-service graduate teachers for BEd courses to be completed by April 2019. The directorate of the erstwhile Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan was designated as the nodal agency to execute the training process.

“All Chief Education Officers, principals of the District Institute of Education and Training and the programme in charges of the BEd programme study centres established across the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir have already been informed that the special chance is being given to all non-registered BEd teacher trainees to submit their re-registration forms at the Jammu and Srinagar regional centres, respectively,” said an IGNOU official.

“There are around 700 untrained teachers who have not registered for the second year. The re-registration will be done in the offline mode. In case, any teacher fails to comply with the instructions, then he/she will be responsible for the lapse. IGNOU, New Delhi, and Samagra Shiksha will not be responsible,” the official said.

J&K comes sixth with 27,000 untrained teachers, including graduates and undergraduates.

Nine districts, including five from the Jammu division and four from the Kashmir division, have the highest number of untrained graduate teachers who are pursuing BEd.

Number of untrained teachers

Jammu division: Jammu (1,389), Doda (1,376), Udhampur (1,305), Poonch (1,134), Rajouri (1,030), Reasi (966), Kathua (865), Ramban (871), Kishtwar (846) and Samba (352).

Kashmir division: Kupwara (2,112), Baramulla (1,731), Anantnag (1,378), Budgam (1,027), Kulgam (645), Srinagar (418), Bandipora (591), Shopian (387), Ganderbal (499) and Pulwama (628).