Stressing the need for producing good teachers to reform the Indian education system, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said the time had come to introduce a five-year training course after schooling for aspiring teachers so that they can be made ready for domestic market and abroad.
“Can’t there be a scenario where children decide early to become teachers? We should create an environment where children can decide to become teachers after 10th or 12th,” he said, launching the Madan Mohan Malaviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching at the Banaras Hindu University.
“There is a dearth of good teachers. Even if you ask rich people who have crores of rupees, what they want, they will say they need good teachers. We need to introspect whether we are losing this culture of education... The education system is not meant to produce robots, but to develop a holistic humanist vision along with science and technology,” he added.
Mr. Modi further said India needed to create an environment for producing teachers rooted in its culture and tradition.
“The 21st century is the century of knowledge and India has the responsibility to make its contribution... My experience as Prime Minister in the past six months says that the whole world is looking at India with expectations. But we are not ready. The world is ready, but we are not ready,” he added.
