Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) is going to shut down poor quality teacher education institutions as the capacity of these institutes have increased by six times more than that needed and is also going to conduct first ever performance appraisal survey of around 19,000 institutes.

The B.Ed has become a degree for marriage, not teaching. That must change, Our agenda is to close down the bad colleges,” NCTE chairperson Satbir Bedi told in a interview.

If we apply simple mathematics then these 19,000 teacher training institutes each have about 100 seats will potentially produce near about 19 lakh graduates every year and if we look at the recommended teacher-student ratio of 1:27 then the country’s 26 crore students need only 90 lakh teachers overall. If each teacher serves about near 30 years than the need for new teaching candidates is only about three lakh, said Dr. Bedi.

Even if we leave aside the fly-by-night institutions and graduates who obtain B.Ed degrees without attending any class and with no intention of ever becoming a teacher, there are simply too many graduates seeking too few jobs.

“Even if we close down 10,000 institutions, we would still be oversubscribed by three times,” noted Dr. Bedi.

“There is oversupply of teachers and this is the main reason for derogation of the teaching profession. That’s why they get away with paying ₹2,000-3,000 per month for a teacher who is supposed to be a leader, a motivator, a counsellor to a generation of children.”

The NCTE will try it best to complete its performance appraisal process and weed out the worst institutions before the next academic year to bring in a fresh set of candidates.

More than just repairing a broken system, the Council wants to start new initiatives that will include :

  • 700 model institutions (at least one per district).
  • A new leadership training programme for principals and head teachers and an experimental international teaching qualification.
  • This would minimise the mushrooming international school market and also potentially prepare teachers who want to take their skills abroad.

“If we can export nurses, then why not teachers?” asked Dr. Bedi. “Instead of running the random B.Ed for the marriage market, if we want to do something meaningful for society, to attract good people to the sector, can’t we design a course for those who really want to teach? This is the profession on which the future depends.”

In response to the new regulations of NCTE each regional headquarters and state authority decided to interpret it differently, and they added complication that many low-quality institutions are owned by major political players. “It will only lead to multiplication of court cases, with the tragic fall out of low quality teacher institutions.”

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