New Delhi: The Government is mulling authorizing private teacher training institutes as it faces severe dearth of quality teachers at primary and upper primary level.

The elementary level currently faces an acute shortage of three lakh teachers in the system. The government plans to standardize qualification and salary for all teachers from Class I to VII and discourage the distance education mode for acquiring BEds.

HRD Minister Kapil Sibal explained, "The basic plan to standardize qualification is to keep a check on teachers so that they are not ensnared to move to upper primary level for better remuneration".

Considering 10% of the teachers over 55 years of age, by 2011, this dearth at primary and middle school level is hooked at 25 lakh.

As 6.5% take retirement every year, approximately 35 lakh teachers would be there in the system by 2011, causing a deficit of 25 lakh.

With the Right to Education law waiting to be implemented, the dispute involves addressing the quality of teachers in spite of general shortage.

It was since 1995, when the National Council for Teachers' Education (NCTE) was accorded with legislative powers to recognize private colleges to generate more teachers that about 15,000 colleges surfaced, but unfortunately the qualifications of these instructors was relaxed which in turn produced poor results.

At the first Round Table on Teachers' Education called by the HRD Ministry recently, this issue was an extensively debated one and the experts agreed with the government's effort to standardize the teaching quality of the teachers.

The government also announced that it would now no longer entertain the idea of a distance-learning mode for acquiring a B.Ed degree as it now encourages a face-to-face interaction with the students but not at the expense of classroom teaching.

According to the recent study made by the National University of Educational Planning and Education (NUEPA), one-fourth of the teachers teaching classes I to VIII have themselves not gone above the secondary level while the another quarter went till senior secondary level only.

Teachers at the upper primary level get better salaries than those at the primary level, which again unsettles the government's scales.

Random hiring of para-teachers, who are not even qualified to teach, on contract basis is another issue waiting to be settled in the government's list.

In Jharkhand, 39 per cent of all teachers are para-teachers. The percentages are 25, 17, and 14 for Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, respectively.