The government on Thursday informed the Rajya Sabha that a new four-year integrated course for B.Ed has been formulated and will start from this session itself for which a notification has been issued.
Replying to supplementaries during Question Hour, HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank said students will save one year through this integrated course, the syllabus for which has been finalised and institutions desirous of introducing the course can do so soon.
"All preparations for introducing the four-year integrated B Ed course have been done and a notification has been issued. The course will start from this session itself," the minister informed the house.
He said the course will be of three types and students can undertake either BA-B Ed, BSc-BEd or BCom-BEd courses.
Pokhriyal said institutions desirous of starting the course can do so and admissions will be done from this session itself.
He also said that after amendments in the Right to Education Act, ensuring training of teachers, all teachers left out can avail the training till October 31, 2019.
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He said 7 lakh teachers have been trained till 2015 but a lot of them remain untrained.
The minister said all teachers were required to have training and it is compulsory as per the RTE Act.
He also said there are 19,542 teacher training institutions imparting 25,876 courses for teacher training and that there are 15 lakh students being trained.
In his written reply, the minister said as per Section 23(1) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) has been notified as an academic authority to lay down minimum qualifications for appointment of a teacher. Accordingly, NCTE has issued guidelines for conduct of Teacher Eligibility Test (TET).
As per the guidelines, the appropriate Government should conduct a TET at least once every year. The Validity Period of TET qualifying certificate for appointment will be decided by the appropriate Government subject to a maximum of seven years for all categories.
Pokhriyal said a proposal to revise TET guidelines has been received from NCTE.