If you plan to become a teacher, like most Indian housewives, we have news for you. The government has decided to drop the popular two-year BED (Bachelor of Education) course that forms the basis of teacher training in India.
Following the MBBS and engineering models, the BED course would now be a four-year integrated teachers training course. Yes, that's right.
Teacher training in India to be a four-year programme
The government wants to ensure that teacher training in India gets the same seriousness as an MBBS or a BTech degree.
The Human Resource development ministry has said that the 2-year Bachelor of Education programme would be an elaborate four-year training for teachers. The ministry has already asked the National Council for Teacher Education ( NCTE) to start work on it. The revamped syllabus would integrate the BA-BEd and BSc-BEd course.
Just two years back, the government had announced that the one-year BEd program would be converted to a two-year intensive course. And with today's report, it's clear that it would not be a two-year course anymore.
The NCTE had introduced new models for teacher training courses in November 2014. It included a two-year BEd course after graduation and a four-year integrated training course after class XIIth.
Only 4000 teachers took the integrated programme in 2016
Data suggests that out of the 15 lakh students that were pursuing teacher training courses in 2016, only 4,000 were undertaking the integrated programme.
The NCTE also announced that students who have cleared their class XIIth exams would be eligible for the four-year course. This is to ensure that teacher training in India gets the same seriousness as an MBBS or a BTech degree.
" The ministry wants the teacher training course to be like the BTech or MBBS programme. There should be only Integrated BA- BEd and BSc- BEd courses so that serious students join, " an NCTE official said told the Telegraph.
Last year the NCTE Chairman AS Mathew had suggested that the education system in India needs an overhaul. He had promised that drastic action would be taken against errant institutions. He had also said that the NCTE will release a list of the top 100 teacher training institutes in India in 2018.
This step would ensure that the growth of poor quality institutions is nixed and teacher training in India becomes transparent.
NCTE is the apex teacher education regulator in India and functions under the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry.
The integrated teacher training course could indeed be a great step for the education system in India. We hope that the teaching profession in India gets all the seriousness it deserves. After all, teachers mould the future of leaders of tomorrow.
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