LAHORE, Oct 4: Directorate of Staff Development programme director Dr Rukhsana Zia has said only licensed persons will be eligible for employment as teachers in future.

Addressing a news conference in connection with the World Teachers Day at the Lahore Press Club on Wednesday, Dr Zia said the provincial government had approved the recommendations of the directorate for licensing and accreditation of the teachers for providing them facilities in accordance with their qualification and experience.

She said introduction of the licensing system had been recommended for the categorisation of teachers for providing them facilities in accordance with their qualification and experience. The DSD had started teachers’ training on modern lines for ensuring improvement in education standard. Introduction of a new examination system had also been recommended for ensuring effective implementation of educational reforms, she said.

She said the teachers’ day was observed in over 100 countries on October 5 every year. The slogan of `quality education through quality teachers’ chosen by Unesco for the World Teachers Day this year highlighted the importance of professional training of teachers. Better working conditions were also necessary along with better education and training for attracting highly qualified persons to the profession.

She said the DSD had started training 50,000 primary school teachers in 12 Punjab districts. It had already trained more than 12,000 teachers, including 11,500 primary school teachers, and 578 district teachers’ educators. The directorate had also got 144,000 copies of training module printed for distribution among the primary school teachers in the province.

She said the DSD would also nominate eight lead educators, four educators and nearly 100 district educators in every district for training the teachers. Teachers would be paid Rs2,000 per week during training and the educators Rs6,000 per month extra. The district educators would be recommended for grant of Grade 16 and paid an allowance of Rs4,500 per month.

She said the DSD had started nominating educators for training the teachers on modern lines. As many as 1,404 educators had been nominated for districts of Attock, Okara, Faisalabad, Gujrat, Kasur, Muzaffargarh, Mianwali, Mandi Bahauddin, Rahim Yar Khan, Rajanpur, Sargodha and Sheikhupura under the first phase. As many as 702 cluster training and support centres had been established in these districts. Teaching aids worth Rs3,89,000 would be provided to every cluster centre to be run at a cost of Rs34,600 per month.

She said 2,512 educators would be nominated for the remaining 23 districts of the province in the second phase.

She said the DSD planned a programme to impart spoken Eglish training to the teachers through radio programmes in Kasur, Sheikhupura, Gujrat and Narowal. A pilot project had already been prepared for the purpose, and tested successfully.