Hyderabad: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is ignoring the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) norms by not including students who pursued the Bachelor of Education for Paper primary level in the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) in its latest notification for Kendriya Vidyalayas, according to B.Ed students. Those who have qualified to study B.Ed are eligible only for paper II this time.
According to the latest NCTE norms, B.Ed students can be appointed at the primary level, though they are trained to teach the higher classes.
Mr Ramdas, General Secretary, All India B.Ed Colleges, said, “Nationwide, the number of diploma students are less, whereas Bachelor students are more in number, but primary teachers are badly needed. Also students who are trained for teaching class 9 mathematics can also teach II class, hence it would only be logical to consider B.Ed students for the primary level too. Many State Eligibility Tests (SET) are allowing them for the primary level.” Earlier according to NCTE, only diploma students were eligible for Primary (I to VII) and students with bachelor’s degree were eligible for teaching higher classes (VII to XII).
In the recent Parliament session, Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javedkar introduced a bill to modify the teacher education with a four-year course, like the Regional Institute of Education (RIE). The bill was passed and it will be implemented after two years. Experts say that it was decided to give a chance to the current B.Ed students to apply for the primary too.
Students have taken to Twitter and are demanding CBSE do justice to B.Ed students by following NCTE norms. They have been tweeting with hashtags, #Justice4BEd and #primaryCTET4BEd since the day the notification was released.
A tweet from, Pradeep Tripati, reads, “Is there anyone left to monitor the functioning of CBSE, Many states like MP, Tripura etc following Central government instructions whereas CBSE is NOT... Isn’t it a Govt compromise #justice4BEd and quality education.” Ms Soujanya Nanduri, a B.Ed graduate said, “We were trained to teach higher classes, whereas students trained for teaching primary school are trained to teach all subjects. The methodology with which primary kids are taught are different from that of higher class students.”
