Chennai: Tamil Nadu government has reserved 20 per cent of B.Ed. seats for BE graduates in courses such as maths, physics, chemistry and computer science from this academic year.
The department of higher education in the admission guidelines has directed all government, government aided and private colleges to reserve seats for BE graduates, sources said.
In government and government aided colleges alone more than 200 seats would be reserved for BE graduates this year, they said. There are more than 600 private colleges of education in the state.
To reduce unemployment among BE graduates, the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) had relaxed norms allowing them to pursue the two-year B.Ed. degree course last year. Following the revision in norms, Department of Higher Education recently issued guidelines reserving the 20 per cent of seats for them.
“Last year also B.E. graduates applied for B.Ed. counselling following the NCTE’s announcement. As there was less awareness, we had received only few hundred applications from BE graduates,” an official from Tamil Nadu B.Ed. Admissions said.
P. Elangovan, state president, Tamil Nadu Graduate Teachers’ Association, said, “These engineering graduates will find it difficult to get employed as already there are lakhs of unemployed B.Ed. graduates in the state.” “Engineering graduates cannot take classes for students from high and higher secondary schools. They study physics and chemistry in the first year alone. This will not be enough to teach students in higher classes,” he said. Until 2021 there won’t be any large number of vacancies in the government schools, he pointed out.
