Teachers can now enrol for online refresher courses in anything from Indian culture to communication technology

The registration for the course is open until February 28, 2019. Any teacher can enrol, irrespective of their subject and seniority.

Picture for representational purpose only

Teachers working with higher education institutions across the country can now avail of an annual refresher course, with the click of a button. The Union Ministry for Human Resource Development (MHRD) has started an Annual Refresher Programme in Teaching (ARPIT) under the Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya National Mission, to cater to teachers in service.

As per details provided by the MHRD, this online refresher programme/course is a 40-hour module, with 20 hours of video and 20 hours of non-video content, which can be accessed by teachers across the country at any given time. In the existing system, teachers get refresher courses by the academic staff colleges at their respective universities, sponsored by University Grants Commission (UGC). Orientation and refresher course are conducted whenever there is a demand, according to the subjects.

“The target of the programme is to cover 1.5 million higher education faculty in the country,” said a source from MHRD. The task of preparing the online training material was given to 78 discipline-specific national resource centres.

These include Regional Institute of English (Mysuru), Indian Institute of Science (Bengaluru), Aligarh Muslim University (UP), Dr Ba Marathwada University (Maharashtra), and Banaras Hindu University (Varanasi), among others. These institutions, identified as resource centres, have prepared online material, with the focus on the latest developments in the discipline, new and emerging trends, pedagogical improvements and methodologies for transacting revised curriculum.

“The course covers a diverse range of topics, including Indian culture and heritage studies, personal emotional development, counselling, information and communication technology in teaching maths and science,” explained an official. The registration for the course is ongoing and will be open till February 28, 2019. Any teacher can enrol, irrespective of their subject and seniority.