Hyderabad, April 6 -- Teachers hold the key to good education. Teaching is all about transferring knowledge from teachers to learners or students. Students carry nothing out of the classrooms but what they learn from their teachers. Issues like textbooks, school environment, physical infrastructure and administrative apparatus are peripheral to learning.

India has about nine million teachers who teach in around 1.5 million schools. The centrality of teachers to learning has been recognised by all. A field survey report of Teachers Educational Institutions (TEIs) by the Azim Premji puts the number of these institutions in the country at a little over 17,000. The study says the demands for teachers for new appointments annually is roughly ...