Summary
42 higher education institutions will start offering BEd courses from this year
Among them are IIT Kharagpur, IIT Bhubaneswar, NIT Agartala, NIT Calicut, NIT Warangal and NIT Puducherry
Two Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and four National Institutes of Technology (NITs) will offer an integrated four-year Bachelor of Education (BEd) course this year and admit students through a national entrance test to be conducted in 13 languages including Bengali.
The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) has rolled out Integrated Teacher Education Programme (ITEP) to allow Class XII passouts to pursue BA-BEd or BSc-BEd or BCom-BEd in four years. If they pursue the two courses separately, they have to spend at least five years.
IIT Kharagpur, IIT Bhubaneswar, NIT Agartala, NIT Calicut, NIT Warangal and NIT Puducherry are among 42 higher education institutions that will start teaching BEd courses this year. The tech schools decided to venture out of their areas of core competency after being prodded by the education ministry.
The NCTE has entrusted the National Testing Agency (NTA) to hold the National Common Entrance Test (NCET) for the selection of students. The NTA has announced that the NCET will be held in English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.
A candidate appearing in the NCET will opt for two language papers, three domain-specific subjects, one paper on general studies and another paper on teaching aptitude. Students can apply for the test till July 19.
Relaxation concern
The NCTE has allowed relaxation in faculty qualification to IITs and NITs to make the task easy for them.
A BA-BEd or BSc-BEd or BCom-BEd course requires two kinds of teachers — subject teachers for teaching undergraduate-level subjects and pedagogy and general teacher-training experts.
The tech schools — which teach general undergraduate courses alongside engineering courses — will be able to largely use their existing faculty as subject teachers for the ITEP, with the NCTE relaxing the qualification requirements for these teachers for all institutions offering the integrated programme.
The subject teachers of the ITEP will no longer need to have BEd degrees unlike their counterparts in general teacher-training colleges that teach standalone BEd or MEd courses. They will only need a master’s degree (if they have cleared the National Eligibility Test) or a PhD in the discipline subject.
The ITEP will offer different levels of specialisation — foundation (pre-primary and Classes I and II), preparatory (Classes III to V), middle (Classes VI to VIII) and secondary (Classes IX to XII).
Jitendra Sharma, who retired as a professor from a teacher-training college in Rajasthan, told The Telegraph that the relaxation in the qualifications required of subject teachers under the ITEP had set a bad precedent.
“In future, aspiring (subject) teachers for general BEd colleges will demand relaxation from the requirement to have BEd and MEd degrees. Teacher educators can teach well if they are trained in teaching methods and pedagogy,” Sharma said.
The ITEP students earning 160 credits in four years will get BSc-BEd, BCom-BEd or BA-BEd degrees. The graduates can pursue a Master of Education or a master’s degree in the major subject they took as part of the ITEP.
The students will have the option of quitting the programme midway with a certificate after one or two years, or with a bachelor’s degree in the major discipline after three years, provided they have secured 120 credits overall with 48 credits in the major discipline.
Last updated on 05 Jul 2023
