India needs 12 lakhs more teachers under the Right to Education Campaign, the Union Minister for Human Resource and Development, Mr Kapil Sibal, said while delivering the 38th Shri Ram Memorial Lecture.

Speaking on the topic ‘Inclusive Education for the Marginalised', he said that the Government is looking to immediately hire teachers irrespective of their qualifications to meet the supply shortage. In the next five years, these teachers would be required to acquire the minimum qualifications with ‘on the job training' otherwise they will be eased out.

He pushed for innovative ideas and noted that with several other sources of knowledge for children such as computers and television, teachers have become facilitators of knowledge and quality teaching is necessary for human resource development.

At the conference hosted by the PHD Chamber, Mr Sibal stated that a dismal 70 per cent of the workforce in India has never gone to a primary school and only five-seven per cent have any skill. Even people opting for R&D in India are 8.6 per cent which is very low. With 546 million people under 25 years of age, there is huge potential in India which is untapped, he said. He urged the private sector to invest in human resources as now the wealth of corporations depends on intangible intellectual property not physical assets........Read more

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