The Bachelor of Education (B Ed) degree once a hot favorite among students is losing its sheen due to reduced interest of students. The things are so bad for the private colleges that some of them are even contemplating closure.
There are more than 100 private colleges in the State which are offering B Ed courses to the students. It is learnt that only less than 30 percent seats in the B Ed colleges are filled this year.
It is believed that almost half of the seats in these colleges would remain vacant this year. The experts are of the view that two year B Ed course started this year by the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) is responsible for lukewarm response of the students in the degree.
The President of Association of Self financed institutes of Uttarakhand, Sunil Agarwal accepted that fewer students are turning up for admissions. He said that many colleges could opt to withdraw from offering the course from next year due to financial constraints. Agarwal said that the current practice of holding the entrance examination for B Ed course should be done away with.
"What is the necessity of holding the entrance examination when the seats are vacant in the collegesIJ The guidelines of NCTE mandate that a student should have at least 50 Percent marks in the Graduate level for being eligible for B Ed course. The admissions could be done based on merit prepared by the marks obtained in the gradation examination, "he suggested.
Interestingly in Uttarakhand the HNB Garhwal central University, Sri Dev Suman Uttarakhand University and Kumaon University conduct separate entrance examination for B.Ed course offered by the colleges affiliated under them.
"In other states single entrance examination for B.Ed is held for all the colleges but in Uttarakhand separate universities are taking separate examinations which cause problems to the students and create duplicity of work which can be avoided," opined one of an expert.
Manish Budakoti a resident of Dehradun said that the basic charm of doing B Ed course was getting into a Government teaching job and maximum numbers of teaching posts are in primary schools but the NCTE has now directed that only Diploma in Elementary Education (D El Ed) qualified candidates are eligible to teach in primary classes due to which the chances of getting government job after doing B Ed degree are reduced substantially. On the other hand the students are making a beeline for D El Ed course now.