Four IITs, including IIT Kharagpur, have proposed to start four-year Bachelor of Education (BEd) courses from 2023-24, the government told Parliament on Monday.

In a written reply, minister of state for education, Subhas Sarkar, said the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) had planned to allow running of Integrated Teacher Education Programme (ITEP) in multidisciplinary institutions on a pilot basis.

The NCTE has already notified regulations on ways to conduct ITEP to enable Class XII passouts pursue integrated BA-BEd, BSc-BEd and BCom-BEd courses.

This programme would help students save at least one year.

DMK leader Ramalingam S. wanted to know whether some IITs were planning to roll out BEd courses.

“NCTE invited applications from central and state government institutions/ universities between May 1, 2022 and May 31, 2022 on the ITEP portal for the academic session 2023-24. Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) Kharagpur, Madras, Guwahati and Bhubaneswar have submitted their applications,” Sarkar said.

An IIT Kharagpur faculty member told The Telegraph that the IITs were trying to diversify their academic and research activities.

So far, the IITs have been known for technology education and research. Several of them have started management education.

This year, IIT Delhi’s management department was ranked the fourth-best B-School in the country, even bettering IIM Lucknow and IIM Kozhikode.

The BEd courses will promote academic diversity in IITs.