Teachers to be taught English

MUMBAI: The education department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will impart training in speaking English and instruction methods among others from Monday, to the ‘surplus’ teachers of vernacular schools run by the BMC.

The training, which will be for a month, will be conducted by the British Council and expert English teachers. After the training, these teachers will be placed in English-medium BMC schools and this way the department aims to give jobs to the surplus teachers and also increase the number of teachers in the English medium schools.

There are around 250 to 300 teachers who will be trained. “These teachers mostly belong to Marathi and Gujarati-medium schools. We will train them in a way which will ensure that their grammar is perfect,” said Prakash Charate, education officer of BMC while talking to The Asian Age. Mr. Charate is in charge of this teachers’ training program.

He further explained, “Teaching in English for these teachers in a month will be difficult but we have assigned the best of the best to train them to make it easier for them.” They will be trained in a way that will increase their vocabulary and enhance their teaching skills in English.

Once the training is complete, these teachers will be placed in English medium schools of BMC. The training will start from May 7 and continue till June 7 and the
department’s target is to give training for 26 working days.

“We have too many Mumbai Public Schools (MPS) which is fully English medium and around 25 International schools which need teachers with good English teaching and speaking skills. All these surplus teachers will be recruited in these schools,” Mr. Charate added.

According to the education department, several existing teachers in BMC schools will retire in the academic year 2018-19 so these surplus teachers will be able to replace them. Moreover, due to lack of students many Marathi-medium and Gujarati-medium schools are shut or on the verge of closure.

This means more teachers of these schools will be declared as surplus in the coming academic year. “This should be a good and effective way to utilise the surplus teachers,” Mr Charate concluded. 

Praja Foundation report

BMC Marathi-medium schools account for the highest number of schools with the most number of teachers, although the number of students in Hindi, Urdu, and English medium is higher than Marathi.