New Delhi, Feb 9 (NationPress) A remarkable 3,032 mentors have been enlisted nationwide by the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) as part of the National Mission on Mentoring (NMM), aimed at enhancing the skills of school teachers, as reported to the Lok Sabha on Monday.

Minister of State (MoS) for Education, Jayant Chaudhary, disclosed in a written response that the mentors participating in the NMM are chosen by the NCTE through a meticulous process that evaluates professional excellence, mentoring aptitude, and their consistency with the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020.

According to MoS Chaudhary, any exceptional professional, whether retired or actively engaged, with a minimum of eight years of experience in their specialization—including professors, principals, and other experts—can be considered for mentorship roles.

Mentors are required to submit their applications via a specified form available on the NCTE website, and they receive necessary orientation and capacity-building support.

The mentoring strategy within the NMM utilizes technology-driven, need-specific support, integrating both individual and group mentoring through a dedicated digital interface known as the Unified Mentoring Interface (UMI).

This mentoring encompasses 30 domains and 41 sub-domains that align with the NEP, 2020, covering areas such as pedagogical content knowledge, foundational literacy, inclusive education, and digital education, and is carried out continuously to bolster teachers' professional growth, MoS Chaudhary further elaborated.

To enhance teaching-learning practices, the NMM's objective is to build a significant pool of distinguished professionals (mentors) dedicated to offering both short- and long-term professional assistance as well as fostering cross-learning among school teachers (mentees), as stated on the NMM website. The mentors play a vital role in the continuous professional development and capacity building of educators.

In response to another inquiry regarding the reservation system for promotions among engineers and technical staff in IITs, the Education Ministry clarified that the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) operate as autonomous entities governed by the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961, along with its subsequent amendments and the statutes formulated therein.

Reservations within IITs for non-teaching positions are implemented in accordance with the Union government's reservation policy to foster social justice and equitable representation, as noted by MoS for Education Sukanta Majumdar.

Positions are reserved based on the guidelines set forth by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).

“These initiatives aim to ensure that opportunities within these institutions are accessible to candidates from underrepresented communities while recruitment remains transparent and merit-based,” MoS Majumdar stated.