Para 5.15 of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 envisages to give continuous opportunities to teachers for self-improvement and to learn the latest innovations and advances in their professions. Each teacher and school principal is expected to participate in at least 50 hours of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) opportunities every year for their own professional development, driven by their own interests.  CPD can be offered in multiple modes, including in the form of local, regional, state, national, and international workshops as well as online teacher development modules.

The Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education launched a National Mission to improve learning outcomes at the Elementary level through an Integrated Teacher Training Programme called NISHTHA – National Initiative for School Heads’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement on 21st August, 2019 under the centrally sponsored scheme of Samagra Shiksha. In view of the COVID pandemic, NISHTHA online elementary teachers was launched on 06th October, 2020 and the remaining training of NISHTHA at elementary level was conducted online by the NCERT on the DIKSHA platform using high quality professionally made e-content. 

In 2021-22, NISHTHA online has been extended to Secondary level (NISHTHA 2.0) and Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (NISHTHA 3.0) for Secondary,  Pre-primary & Primary respectively with a focus on improvement in quality of teachers and learning outcomes of students, as per the vision of the National Education Policy, 2020.