Millenniumpost - Shortage of 1.2 million school teachers in India: CBSE survey 30 April 201 New Delhi, Namrata Tripathi

In a survey conducted by Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), it has been found that Indian schools are currently falling short by 1.2 million teachers.With more students enrolling for school education in India, the pupil-teacher ratio stands at 43:1, whereas according to Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) the standard ratio is 30:1. Commenting on the results of the survey, CBSE chairman, Vineet Joshi said that the shortage of teachers in schools has made the board reconsider certain priorities. The board will now put greater emphasis on the role of technology in its classrooms. Joshi in a conference on Monday also said, ‘we would be better off if we created a system where the external examination beyond standard X were de-emphasised.’ Questioning the large-scale assessment programmes in the country, Joshi said that we need to understand the diversification of the country before blindly adapting the assessment process of other countries. He further explained the new reforms and the assessment processes like the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) have opened several communication channels and are now providing greater interaction between schools and parents. The chairman also said that the CCE evaluation model, which is implemented by CBSE in association with Centre for Assessment and Evaluation Research (CAER), is the framework for evaluating the potential of a child rather than the average three hour pen and paper test, which hardly evaluates the complete potential of a student. CBSE in collaboration with its research wing CAER organised a two-day international conference to raise the standard of assessment discourse in the country. The conference discussed the nuances of how to fill the pertaining gap or lag between traditional assessment methods and the new patterns, which are being adopted by schools and other educational institutions. Commenting on the strengthening qualitative assessments in the country, the director of CAER Sarita Manuja said, ‘Purposeful assessments can lead to wide scale improvement in learning. Therefore, it is important to constantly share innovative ideas that can strengthen global education and enhance student performance.’