Cong govt promoting educational change through research innovation: Sukhu

Shimla: Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukvinder Singh Sukhu said on Saturday that in order to strengthen the training mechanism for teachers, his govt is going to refurbish the state council of educational research and training(SCERT) and all the district institutes of education and training (DIETs).
The SCERT has been elevated as an apex institution for school and teacher training with its administrative control transferred to state project director of Samgra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), he added.The administrative oversight of DIETs has also been given to the SSA state project director.
Previously, SCERT was under higher education and DIETs were managed by elementary education, leading to a lack of clarity in the policy regarding deployment and transfer of teachers in these training institutions. He added that this restructuring provides much needed clarity and functioning of both the entities.
Initially established in 1954 as the College of Education, it transformed into a state institution of education in 1970, and was re-structured as SCERT in 1984. Its core mission is to enhance the quality of education by providing in-service training to teachers and other educational personnel.
The chief minister said the restructuring of SCERT will enable it to function more effectively in providing training to teaching faculty thereby promoting educational transformation through research and innovation.
The Himachal govt has also given a facelift to DIETs, which play a crucial role in providing pre-service and in-service teacher education programmes as well as conducting state and district-level educational research on various issues such as enrollment, retention and gender parity in education.
DIETs in Lahaul-Spiti and Kinnaur districts will focus exclusively on in-service training and the remaining DIETs will be classified into categories A and B, based on the infrastructure, with selected bridge courses offered in addition to regular training.