Rs 7,500 crore to make teachers take lessons in English

Hyderabad

The Telangana State Government's ambitious plan to improve the quality of educational standards and encourage the use of English medium in government schools with an outlay of Rs 7,500 crore is awaiting nod from the Finance department. A Group of Ministers committee, appointed to suggest measures to improve the quality of education and introduction of English medium, recently met and discussed the issue.

'Mana Ooru-Mana Badi' is proposed with an exclusive outlay of Rs 7,500 crore. Since opposition parties and teachers' organisations raised questions regarding the difficulties that may arise in training the teachers who so far were teaching in Telugu medium, the Government has roped in Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, and a Mysore-based English language institution to develop training modules for the teachers to learn and teach school subjects in the English medium.

According to an official from the Telangana State Council of Educational Research and Training (TSCERT), they have already provided training for teaching different subjects in English to the teachers. However, it was not in a structured format or in form of a continuous training module. It was in bits-and- pieces mode to meet the requirement. However, now the training of existing teachers to in various subjects in English would have a specific module of training. The decision to introduce the English medium was to meet the aspirations of parents to get their children educated in that medium. Secondly, to increase the marketability of the skills that the students acquire and adopt an effective communication to convey - which is the prime driver for maximizing success rates in their careers - in a globalised scenario, say officials.

The decision to implement new measures in the education sector from the ensuing academic year has been taken not only after marathon deliberation at the ministers' committee level meeting but also during the review by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, the sources said.