1000 B.Ed and D.Ed Courses to Face Closure: HRD Ministry

Nearly a thousand educational institutes running B.Ed and D.Ed courses have been issued a show cause notice by the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) for non-compliance to the stipulated norms.

Why are the courses terminated?

These courses will face closure due to failing to submit required data through affidavits, a senior Union Human Resource Development Ministry official announced on Saturday.

"NCTE has already issued 1,000 show-cause notices to stop affiliation with NCTE and thereafter, these colleges will not be able to admit students for B.Ed and D.Ed courses. 3,000 more show cause notices will be issued soon," said Anil Swarup, Secretary, School Education and Literacy, in the ministry.

How did it all start?

According to him, the NCTE had asked 16,000 B.Ed and D.Ed colleges in India to submit an affidavit in respect to all the data, but only 12,000 of them did so. "I think the biggest mafia in the education sector are some B.Ed and D.Ed colleges. Some of them exist in name only. We took them on," he said at an interaction held by the Merchants' Chamber of Commerce.

Further course of action

He said the NCTE engaged the Quality Council of India for quality assessment of these colleges, so that they could be "star rated". "The system will likely be in place within this financial year and the rating will happen thereafter," he added.

Pre-school norms

"It is too premature to make any comment on what should happen to pre-schools because there are other ministries involved in it." "That is the area which we have to look into," Swarup said.

On child safety in schools

Swarup said that Ministry has been pushing the schools to install surveillance system as far as the CBSE run one concerned. "The rest is in the state's hands," he said.