With Rajya Sabha passing the National Council for Teacher Education Bill (Amended) - 2019 which grants retrospective recognition to the teacher education courses of certain institutions, the politics of seeking credit for the Union government’s move has started.
The bill passed by the RS has given the much- needed reprieve to more than 16000 teachers working in the government schools of Uttarakhand as threat of losing jobs was dangling over their heads.
As expected, the office of Rajya Sabha MP and BJP’s national spokesperson Anil Baluni was the first to take credit. In his official facebook account, the MP thanked the Prime Minister, the Union HRD minister and all members of Rajya Sabha for passing the bill. Not to be left behind in the credit- taking scramble, the office of education minister of Uttarakhand Arvind Pandey claimed that a delegation of Prathemik Shikshak Sangh (PSS) would meet the education minister on Saturday to thank him for protecting the cause of teachers. Sensing the race among the political leaders to glorify themselves with the much-awaited clearance, a delegation led by the president of the PSS, Digvijay Singh Chauhan met the chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat and thanked him for the passage of the bill which removed the compulsion of the two- year bridge course for Special Basic Teacher Certificate (BTC) course qualified teachers. The delegation of teachers also met the education minister Arvind Pandey on the day to express their gratitude.
The president of PSS Digvijay Singh Chauhan told The Pioneer that the teachers are happy with the passage of the bill in Rajya Sabha and everyone, including CM Rawat, RS member Anil Baluni, education minister of Uttarakhand Arvind Pandey and CM’s advisor Navin Baluni, helped in solving the logjam facing the teachers.
The new bill is aimed at amending the NCTE Act of 1993 which grants retrospective permission to the teacher training courses which were not approved by the apex body of teacher education.
The issue
There are more than 16000 serving teachers in Uttarakhand who are Special BTC (referred as Vishisht BTC teachers).
The Bachelor of Education (BEd) qualified teachers were imparted an in- service training of special BTC in different District Institutes of Teachers Training (DIET) from the year 2001 to 2016 to make them eligible to teach in primary classes. However, it was realised last year that the all -important recognition from NCTE was not taken by the education department of Uttarakhand for special BTC. A shocked department pleaded to NCTE to grant recognition in retrospection which was not accepted as it violates the Act by which it is governed.
As per the new guidelines of the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry, only the Diploma in Elementary Education (DElEd) qualified candidates are eligible to teach the primary students. It had made it clear that after March 2019, all primary teachers who do not have a DElEd degree or BTC certificate would be removed from primary teaching.
The BEd qualified candidates who are teaching primary classes were given an option to register for a six- month bridge course offered by the NIOS.
The teachers, however, objected to it and most of them did not get registered for the bridge course. The problem of these teachers is now sorted out by the passage of NCTE amendment bill in the Upper House of the Parliament.