District Institutes of Education and Training - Teacher Education

District Institutes of Education and Training: A Comparative Study in Three Indian States
3.4 Staffing
3.4.1 Recruitment
From their inception, it was difficult to staff DIETs. When DIETs were upgraded
from their former status, existing staff were absorbed if they had the necessary
qualifications and expressed interest. Reponses to advertisements for DIET staff
drew few applications. Remaining posts were filled by transferring into them
teachers who had the necessary qualifications, even if they showed no interest and
did not apply for the post. The following was a common refrain among staff in
Udaipur, Indore and Dhar DIETs:
AC How did you come to the DIET?
TT03 They pushed us. We got transferred. We didn’t know what it [the DIET]
was (MP/DHA TT 03 21.6.99).
This was possible because the DIET staff and secondary teachers were of the same
civil service grade, so personnel could be freely transferred between DIET and the
secondary schools of the Education Department.
With the exception of Masuda, discussed earlier, sample DIETs had adhered to the
stipulated qualifications of double Master’s degrees, which virtually exclude
elementary teachers, leaving a pool mostly of secondary teachers to draw upon.
Only a handful of staff across the sample DIETs had any practical elementary
teaching experience. The emphasis on higher level qualifications is linked with
official expectations of the role of the DIET, and a view of elementary teachers as
not having the capabilities required to discharge it. In practice, this creates a
tension, for recruitment from the secondary sector is seen as logical, but has not
proved satisfactory. This ambivalence is reflected in the words of the Rajasthan
SIERT’s Director:
Dir [DIET is seen as a higher post] means ... they have to manage all the
academic activities in the State. So those people must have the vision and
they should be qualified. This type of qualified staff is not available in
elementary. From where they will come? Either from direct recruitment
or from the transfer. There are two possibilities.
CD So you had to look to secondary education?
Dir Yes. There are certain posts which are equivalent in secondary
education so far as the grades are concerned. The government transfers
those people to the DIETs in the same pay scale. They are expected to
...but the drawback is that, many times, people of the secondary do not
have sufficient experience to bring such types of activities into
elementary. And that's the problem. How to solve this is a problem
(23.2.01).
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