RS takes up bill to amend NCTE Act

A bill to provide retrospective recognition to central and state government funded institutions offering B.Ed and related courses which are not recognised under the National Council for Teacher Education Act, was moved in the Rajya Sabha today.

The National Council for Teacher Education (Amendment) Bill would help over 10,000 students, who have obtained the B.Ed degrees from those institutions which do not have NCTE approval for the course.

The bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on July 23.

Introducing the bill, HRD Minister Prakash Javedekar said it would provide retrospective permission to start a new course or training in teacher education to institutions.

"This is a one-time arrangement to provide relief to 10,000 B.Ed degree holders who have staged protests for one year," he said.

The minister said that in the list of such institutions which do not have NCTE approval include several leading central universities such as the BHU, AMU and Sagar University, besides several state universities including two centres of the NCERT.

He also informed the House that the "responsibilty would also be fixed" for such lapse.

The bill also seeks to grant retrospective permission to start a new course or training in teacher education to institutions.

While participating in the debate, D P Vats (BJP) said there was an urgent need to improve the quality of institutions which trained the teachers and their faculty.

According to him, there are over 17,000 institution in India.

Noting that the list included only the government-aided institutions, he said there were several students who had passed out of private colleges, which should also be added to the list.

The discussion remained inconclusive and would be taken up next week.