IISc to train government school teachers

BANGALORE: The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) will train school teachers in science education on a regular basis, IISc Director Professor P Balaram said.He was speaking at the inauguration of second statelevel Science and Technology Conference organised by Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology in association with Vision Group for Science and Technology and the Department of Science and Technology on Thursday.The theme for this year is "Initiatives for human resource development in Science and Technology."Professor Balaram said that, from this year, IISc in association with Government of Karnataka, is planning to train government school teachers, especially from rural parts of the state in science education.This will improve quality of education in school level, he said and added that they have constituted teachers training centres at their new campus near Challakere in Chitradurga district.IISc has trained 100 teachers from Chitradurga district between last week of February and first week of March. "Now, with the same module we are planning to run the training on a regular basis," Balram added.Noted scientist and resident in the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research Prof C N R Rao said the centre is also offering Post Graduate Diploma in Science Education. It will be one year course."We are getting many inquiries for the course, some are from outside the state," he added.Rao further said that science is not just Information Technology (IT) and Biotechnology (BT). Last year, more than 65,000 students joined engineering courses in Karnataka.In the US, around 75,000 engineers are produced every year."We are producing more engineers. But science is being neglected. Parents should be held responsible for making their children to join engineering courses. They should not pressurise their children," the veteran scientist said.