The National Council for Teachers Education (or NCTE) is planning to restart the one-year BEd course in 2025. After almost a decade-long pause, this decision by NCTE comes in line with the New Education Policy (NEP 2020 )recommendations. The course will be offered to candidates after completing the four-year bachelor’s degree or after obtaining a master’s degree.
An eight-member committee is being constituted to finalise the curriculum framework of various courses.
“One year BEd program will be for four-year undergraduate students and two-year postgraduate students. It will not be offered to those who have completed three-year UG programmes and they have to enrol in a two-year BEd programme. Institutions offering the two-year BEd programme will have to become multidisciplinary institutes by 2028,” said Pankaj Arora, the chairperson for NCT
The one-year BEd program began its operations in 1990. However, in 2014, the course was discontinued after the recommendations of two expert panels: Justice JS Verma and Professor Poonam Batra. This move came after the substandard quality of teachers’ training was highlighted. It was then that the teacher education regulator increased the duration of BEd to two years, including 20 weeks of mandatory internship inside schools.
Need For Longer BEd Course
Universities in independent India continue to offer the one-year BEd program that was inherited from the colonial era. NCTE, the regulatory body established by an act of Parliament, in 1995, did little to change this reality. In 2011, in response to the Maharashtra Government’s opposition to NCTE’s recognition of a large number of private teacher training institutes, the Supreme Court constituted a high-powered commission under Justice JS Verma to review the sector of teacher education and the functioning of NCT.” said professor of education at the University, Poonam Batra.
The main recommendation of the commission was to make the BEd programme into a two-year course moving beyond the colonial framework. A longer period was required for the preparation of teachers in India’s diverse social-cultural context which will provide them sufficient time for study and reflection on school knowledge, interdisciplinarity and pedagogic approaches.
To maintain a standardised quality of teacher training, the NCTE is trying to ensure parity across all teacher education programmes, according to Chairperson Arora.
We are also concerned about teacher training and education. I have constituted a committee to ensure that quality must not be compromised under the one-year BEd programme. We will continue to provide school practical training to students like internships in school.” added Prof. Batra.
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