Tripura Chief Minister Prof. Dr Manik Saha on Wednesday  said that the state government has taken various significant steps to provide better education to students and for that in the last five financial years, a total of 4,656 Graduate and Undergraduate teachers have been appointed in the state.

Chief Minister Dr Saha, who is also the Education Minister of the state, presented this information in the state assembly session on Wednesday.

Providing details, Dr Saha said that the Nipun Mission was launched in the state on November 18, 2022.

Since then, several steps have been taken to ensure quality education for students from the pre-primary level to Class II under the Nipun Mission.

"Among these significant steps, 10,182 primary teachers have been trained as 'Foundational Literacy and Numeracy' teachers under the Nipun Tripura Mission. As a result, activity-based teaching has commenced in schools. Additionally, 200 Block Resource Persons and Cluster Resource Persons have been trained as master trainers to equip all primary teachers in the state for the implementation of Nipun Tripura. A specific teaching-learning material-rich space called the 'Nipun Corner' has been set up in classrooms across all schools under the Nipun Mission," said Dr. Saha.

He stated that under the PM Poshan scheme, cooked meals are provided daily to all students studying in government and government-aided schools and madrasas from Class I to Class VIII.

Furthermore, he mentioned that apart from mid-day meals, breakfast is provided on an experimental basis to 47,792 students from pre-primary to Class VIII in all government and government-aided schools and madrasas in Dhalai district (Aspirational District).

“To encourage teachers to create and use cost-effective teaching and learning aids with their own hands, a state-level teaching and learning aids exhibition and competition was organized for the second time. In this exhibition, teaching and learning aids selected from over 160 district-level competitions were displayed, with a total of approximately 7,000 teachers participating. Additionally, to ensure that students admitted to Class I reach the appropriate level, a nine-week bridge course called the 'Vidya Setu Module' was introduced, modeled after NCERT,” said Dr Saha.

The Chief Minister highlighted that two teacher-parent conferences were organized simultaneously across the state to make parents aware of the mission's goals and objectives.

“The classrooms at the pre-primary level have been made more attractive through various decorations under the 'BALA' (Building as Learning Aid) project. As a result, the number of students has increased to 12,253 from 3,352 in 2020-21. 'Activity-based' teaching arrangements have also been implemented to enhance education at the pre-primary level, leading to an increase in students' regular attendance in schools,” said Dr Saha.

Speaking in the assembly, Dr Saha noted that efforts to improve the quality of education have been strengthened through teacher recruitment by the Teachers' Recruitment Board, Tripura, via the TET examination.

“In the last five financial years, a total of 4,656 teachers have been recruited at various levels under the State Basic Education Right. Out of these, 3,615 are graduate teachers, and 1,041 are undergraduate teachers,” he added.