CDS (II) 2024 General Knowledge · Question 108 of 120

Correct — B, It is a teacher-training programme. NISHTHA stands for National Initiative for School Heads' and Teachers' Holistic Advancement, and it was launched by the Ministry of Education in 2019 as the country's largest integrated in-service training programme for schoolteachers, run as part of the Samagra Shiksha scheme. The design was to train around 42 lakh teachers, school heads and education administrators at the elementary stage in one common framework, with modules on learner-centred pedagogy, learning outcomes, school-based assessment, inclusive education and the emotional and social needs of children. The training packages were developed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training with the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, and the programme later moved online through the DIKSHA platform and was extended to the secondary stage and to foundational literacy and numeracy under NIPUN Bharat.

• (a)It is a training module recently introduced in LBSNAA for civil servants. — Civil service training at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration runs under its own foundation and phase courses, and the Mission Karmayogi framework; none of them is called NISHTHA.
• (c)It is a training programme for the new recruits in Delhi Police to inculcate integrity of service among them. — Police training is run by state police academies and the Bureau of Police Research and Development; NISHTHA is a school education programme.
• (d)It is a workshop for newly elected Members of Parliament organized routinely by the Lok Sabha Secretariat. — Orientation programmes for new Members are run by the Parliamentary Research and Training Institute for Democracies, and are not called NISHTHA.

Samagra Shiksha is the integrated centrally sponsored scheme for school education from pre-school to Class 12, formed in 2018 by merging Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan and teacher education schemes. Teacher capacity building within it runs through NISHTHA, launched in 2019 and delivered first in person and then online through DIKSHA. The National Education Policy 2020 subsequently set a requirement of fifty hours of continuous professional development a year for every teacher, which NISHTHA modules are designed to serve.

Acronym questions of this shape are answered by expanding the acronym rather than by weighing the four descriptions, and the expansion here contains its own answer — school heads and teachers. If the expansion is not remembered, the ministry test helps: three of the options belong to training establishments outside school education, and only one describes a programme of the scale at which the Ministry of Education operates. Worth flagging: UPSC has not released a key for this paper, and some answer keys in circulation mark (d). Orientation programmes for new Members of Parliament exist but are run by a different body under a different name, so this card takes (b).

• NISHTHA = National Initiative for School Heads' and Teachers' Holistic Advancement, launched in 2019 by the Ministry of Education.
• It runs under Samagra Shiksha and was designed to cover about 42 lakh teachers and school heads at the elementary stage.
• Training packages were developed by NCERT with NIEPA, and delivery moved online through the DIKSHA platform.
• The National Education Policy 2020 prescribes at least fifty hours of continuous professional development a year for every teacher.

• Guessing from the ordinary meaning of the Hindi word rather than expanding the acronym.
• Confusing NISHTHA with NIPUN Bharat, which is the foundational literacy and numeracy mission.
• Assuming any national training initiative belongs to the civil services academy.

As a which-statement-is-correct item on a named initiative, or as a scheme-to-ministry match.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  NISHTHA, the integrated teacher-training initiative, is implemented under which umbrella scheme?

  • (a)Samagra Shiksha
  • (b)Mid-Day Meal Scheme
  • (c)Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan
  • (d)Skill India Mission

  Answer(a) Samagra Shiksha — the integrated scheme for school education from pre-school to Class 12.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The training packages for NISHTHA were developed by NCERT together with

  • (a)the University Grants Commission
  • (b)the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration
  • (c)the All India Council for Technical Education
  • (d)the National Testing Agency

  Answer(b) the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration — NCERT and NIEPA jointly prepared the modules.