New ranking scheme for teacher education institutes on the anvil

THE COUNCIL WILL ALSO START GRADING B.ED COLLEGES AND TEACHER TRAINING INSTITUTES SOON, CLASSIFYING THEM INTO CATEGORIES

The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) has come up with ‘TeachR’, a new framework for accreditation and ranking of teacher education institutes in India.

According to a senior NCTE official, the aim behind the move is to build a regulatory framework that promotes academic excellence. The council is aiming at releasing the revised framework by the end of the month after consultation with all stakeholders.

“This framework emphasises on the outcome of education (for example how school-ready are student teachers) and not the inputs to education (for instance, how many books does your library have). With this framework, NCTE aims to unlock the potential of all TEIs to provide better learning outcomes for their student teachers and eventually for all students in India,” said a senior official.

The council has already held national consultations on the ‘TeachR’ framework across the country. One such consultation was held in Delhi on Tuesday, where close to 1,000 stakeholders participated and gave their suggestions, which will be incorporated in the proposed accreditation framework.

So far, over 26,000 suggestions and questions have been received. The last consultation will be held in Bhubaneswar on July 25.

The council will also start grading B.Ed colleges and teacher training institutes soon. “Each institution will be classified into four categories: A, B, C and D. Those falling in Category D will be asked to close down while category C institutes will be inspected again within a year’s time and if they fail to improve, they will be asked to shut shop,” said Dr A Santhosh Mathew, chairperson of NCTE.

Under the revised framework, the institutions will be ranked on four key elements: physical assets, academic assets, teaching and learning quality and student learning outcomes.

The council has already put on the website details of institutions that have submitted either an affidavit that it had sought or those that were issued show cause notice and have replied. There are 11,474 such institutes.

The council has also issued an advisory to students not to enrol in any institute other than those listed on the website.