Students turn teachers in DIET institute, Vikarabad

Rajendranagar: In the absence of lecturers in the Urdu section of the Government DIET College, Vikarabad, students are forced to don the task of mentors on their own to share whatever they learn in the institution.

Established in 1989 by converting the then Government Teacher Training Centre at the district headquarter into District Institute of Education and Training, (DIET), the institute was solely formed to train and upgrade mentorship skills among the DIET candidates through a two-year course before being appointed as teachers in various institutions.

Though it has English, Telugu and Urdu medium sections to train linguistic teachers of three languages under one roof, the Urdu-medium students were made to put in only attendance without training sessions due to lack of lecturers. For over 300 students of both first and second year, only seven lecturers are available to train the candidates considered as future mentors. Though 23 posts of lecturers area sanctioned only seven were filled; the remaining remained vacant for several years. More pathetic is the situation of the Urdu-medium section wherein of 72 candidates not a single lecturer is available. Though six of the 23 posts have been sanctioned for this section, not a single lecturer is available. There are no guest lecturers to train the aspirants. The Urdu-medium students themselves don the role of teachers and are sharing their experiences. "We share with each other by standing before the board one after another every day. This became common for us as we have no lecturers for a long time. At least this way we can somehow prepare ourselves for the final exams," rued Sana Begum, a first-year student.

"Leave alone filling approved posts, the institute does not even have a guest lecture to train the DIET candidates. Lack of lecturers, especially in the Urdu section, is hunting the students who are simply suffering in silence. It is hard to believe that an institution chiefly formed to upgrade the skills of teachers is running without lecturers," bemoaned Mohamed Shafi, another first-year student.