Norms for integrated BEd courses relaxed
In a bid to encourage teacher training colleges to take up four-year integrated Bachelor of Education (BEd) programmes, National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) has relaxed some of the norms for these courses.
The number of full-time faculty members required for a unit of Integrated Teacher Education Programme (ITEP) has been reduced from 16 to nine. The built-up area required for the institutes running this course has also been shrunk from 2,500 square metre (sq m) to 2,000 sq m.
The changes have been introduced through a notification issued by the Central government last month. NCTE, the apex body for teacher training programmes, has also issued a notice inviting proposals from educational institutes for the integrated programme.
The Central government has been pushing for ITEP, as it seeks to improve the quality of teacher training programmes. “ITEP employs the best practices of teacher education from across the world. It is also aimed at bringing qualitative changes in preparing teachers for the school system,” reads the notice.
The academicians, however, fear that the push for ITEP might make it difficult for the existing BEd and Diploma in Education (DEd) programmes to survive. “It’s implicit that the government doesn’t want the institutes offering plain BEd courses as per the new rules for the integrated programmes,” said a former professor at the department of education of the University of Mumbai (MU).
Badrul Islam, an Aurangabad-based educationist and assistant professor at Hyderabad’s Maulana Azad National Urdu University, said that the existing institutes may find it difficult to switch to integrated courses.
“The faculty requirements for plain BEd is much smaller than that for the integrated course. The colleges will have to hire additional staff to meet the norms,” he said.
According to the Central government notification, the integrated BEd programme will be offered in two specialisations pre-primary to primary and upper-primary to secondary.
MUMBAI: