Rajya Sabha member Sudha Murthy on Tuesday pitched for conducting new training courses and holding examinations of teachers every three years and even more for those teaching at the primary level.

During a discussion on the working of the Ministry of Education, Murthy, wife of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy, said that teachers play a very important role and the education system will not improve if there are no good teachers.

“Teachers, once they pass the exam, BA, or MA, or even PhD at a college level, they enter into the system and afterwards, there are no exams until they retire. This should not happen. Every three years, they should have a new technique or new knowledge examination should be there. Otherwise, they will not improve,” Murty said.

“Excellent school premises, all those things you can do, but if you don’t have a good teacher, it is of no use. Teachers play an important role in the education system, not only by their qualification, their methodology of teaching, convincing, becoming friendly, at times strict, many times, you know, very soft. It’s an art.”

She said that there are many training sessions but there are no examinations linked to those training sessions.

“Every three years, a teacher has to appear for an examination with a different learning technology. Because technology changes. Nothing is free in life except for mother’s love. Everything has a price. If you want to be a good teacher, there is a price for that. The price is not money, but good training and an examination for the teachers,” Murty said.

NCP-SCP member Fauzia Khan supported Murty’s call for training and conducting examinations of teachers every three years.

She said that there is a huge difference between the words of the government and their actions.

Khan said that the National Education Policy vision talks about 6 per cent of GDP as expenditure on education but the government has continuously reduced expenditure of the ministry to 2.5 per cent from 3.8 per cent between 2015-16 and 2025-26.

She said no clear funds have been allocated for early childhood education and three lakh schools are ungoverned in the country.

Khan said that the government has talked about setting up a world-class educational institution but has reduced the budget by 73 per cent.

BSP member Ramji called for regulating online education as children are encountering age-inappropriate content.

CPI member Sandosh Kumar P said that Hindi should not be imposed through the National Education Policy and it is the duty of the government to protect all languages.

“All languages are national languages. You can’t find the term “regional language” in the constitution. Malayalam is a national language. Telugu, Oriya, all languages are. Tamil also, for sure. All languages, I stand for all languages,” he said.

JD (U) member Sanjay Kumar Jha language has never been considered a divisive factor in India. He said that there was a culture in this country to support each other.

CPI (M) John Brittas said that treasury bench members have often raised concerns over the emergency.

He said that during the emergency, an amendment was made in the Constitution through which education was taken out of the state list and the government should revert that amendment to give education back to the states.

“The very party who ridicules Congress on emergency actually benefits out of emergency now. They actually feast on emergency,” Brittas said.

He said that the Centre bears partial expense on its scheme but they brand those schemes as theirs.

DMK member M Thambidurai, BJD member Niranjan Bishi and BJP member Maharaja Sanajaoba Leishemba also participated in the discussion.

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