Eros Times
DELHI:EROS TIMES: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister & Education Minister Manish Sisodia laid the foundation stone for a new District Institute of Education & Training (DIET) on June 13 at the Baburam School campus in Shahdara.
After restructuring of the Delhi State Council of Education Research & Training (SCERT) and DIETs last year, this is the first major expansion of the DIET institutions. The new DIET in Shahdara would be the 10th such institute in the city for teacher education and training.
Addressing the gathering during the ceremony, CM Kejriwal hailed Delhi’s education reforms and applauded Education Minister Manish Sisodia, officials of the education department, teachers and principals for putting Delhi on the world map for its high quality government school education system.
Narrating the journey of the education reform story, CM Kejriwal said, “Four and a half years ago, Delhi gave ordinary people like us the responsibility of running the city. When we took over, the city’s social infrastructure was crumbling, whether it was schools, hospitals, water or power supply.
The education machinery was completely battered; school buildings were in ruins and teachers were low on motivations.
Many private schools were running like a mafia, extorting high fees from parents without government regulation. We started with the intent to change this; we wanted that all children – rich or poor – have access to high quality education. But we were nervous. If in 70 years so many parties had tried and failed, would we succeed in our mission?”
“After coming to power, we started with the basics. First we improved and expanded school buildings, enhanced security, upgraded basic infrastructure like toilets and water supply. Our focus was on making the environment conducive to learning.
We doubled the education budget in our first budget itself. But this was the easier part,” said the Chief Minister.
“The bigger challenge before us was to motivate and equip our teachers and principals to provide high quality education inside classrooms. What use are good buildings, if teaching and learning is not up to the mark?” asked CM Kejriwal.
Reaffirming his belief that the one of the most import thing was to impart the government school teachers with world class training, the CM said, I always believed that world class training for our government schools teachers was very important. So, we started with getting them trained at the best institutions across the world.
Crediting Dy CM Sisodia and his team of education officers, teachers and principals, the chief minister said, “I congratulate Manish Sisodia, education officers and the entire machinery which undertook many measures to improve teacher morale and capacity.
Large scale teacher training’s have started in Delhi, with both teachers and principals being sent abroad for advanced training. Earlier, only politicians and high ranking officials would travel abroad for such purposes, but this was the first time the real stakeholders were sent abroad for training.
For the first time, teachers felt cared for and respected. These teachers and principals have returned to the country and transformed Delhi’s government schools. This is the reason today Delhi government schools performance is at an unprecedented 94% pass rate.”
Commenting on the impact of Delhi’s success, CM Kejriwal said, “Countries around the world learn from Finland in matters of education, and within India, the entire country learns from Delhi. But this is just the beginning of our journey. If our train is travelling at a 100 km/h today, we need to take it to the next level and get to 200 km/h. 16 lakh children study in our schools; these are children from underprivileged backgrounds. For far too long, they were neglected. Today, they have a future. They will rewrite their destiny, their families’ destiny and make the country proud. No country in the world becomes developed without providing high quality education to all of its children.”
Laying out the government’s achievements in the higher education sector, Dy CM Sisodia said, “By way of opening new campuses of existing Delhi state universities like DTU, Ambedkar University, etc, Delhi government has opened 13 new undergraduate colleges in the last 4.5 years. This DIET will be college number 14, and number 15 will be another DIET which we will be launching soon at Defence Colony.”
The Deputy Chief Minister also added that with the new DIET we are opening two new centres for teachers training; One at Shahdara and another at Defence Colony. This will train 200 students who pass-out of 12th class for teaching. Delhi Government currently has a capacity of 1040 seats for 12th pass-outs who apply for teachers training in the city spread across the nine centres operational presently. The addition will further add to the availability of number of seats for teachers training.
Informing about a new world class teachers training University in Delhi, the deputy Chief Minister said that a teachers training university is soon going to come up in Delhi.
“The Delhi Government is also coming up with a state of the art world class teachers training University in the city for world class training of teachers in the city. This will add up to the strength and the overall quality improvement in the field of teachers training in Delhi,” said the deputy Chief Minister.
admin
