States to bear 25 pc costs on teachers

This will come into effect from 12th Five Year Plan

The states will now have to bear 25 per cent of the total expenditure on teachers’ education from the 12th Five Year Plan as the Centre is all set to do away with cent per cent funding of the programme.

“The Central government has approved the revision of the scheme for the 12th Plan, with an estimated outlay of Rs 6308.45 crore to be shared between the Centre and the states in the ratio of 75:25.

“The fund sharing ratio between Centre and the north-eastern region will be 90:10,” a Human Resource Development Ministry official said.

Under the scheme of restructuring and reorganisation of teachers’ education, 100 per  cent central assistance is provided to the states for various recurring and non-recurring components of the programme, subject to the financial limits and other conditions specified.

Fair degree

“This has been revised to ensure that state governments also have a fair degree of financial stake in implementation of the scheme and also because the institutions like SCERTs, DIETs, CTEs and IASEs for which financial assistance is provided are, in any case, state-owned institutions,” the official said. The Central assistance would be released to the states only after they commit to spend their mandatory share under the various components and also has spent the state share against the previous releases of central assistance, he added.

   The Centrally-sponsored scheme of restructuring and reorganisation of teachers’ education was initiated in 1987 pursuant to the formulation of the National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986, which envisaged education as a continuous process with pre-service and in-service training being its inseparable components.

The NPE also emphasised the significance and need for a decentralised system for the professional preparation of teachers, and it was in this context that District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs), Colleges of Teacher Education (CTEs) and Institutes of Advanced Study in Education (IASEs) were established.

The scheme, last revised in 2002, was implemented with certain modifications in the eighth, ninth and tenth five year plans.