The Bachelor of Education (BEd) degree is fast losing its sheen as students are showing a clear disinterest for the degree, though it was once a hot favourite. The order of National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) — which prohibits the BEd degree for the appointment in the primary schools is one of the major causes for this disinterest.
The counseling for admission in the colleges affiliated with the Sridev Suman University on Saturday clearly reflected the trend of student’s disinterest when only 390 out of 1,133 selected students appeared for counseling. Interestingly, only 1,766 students appeared for the entrance examination for 1,340 seats. Uttarakhand has 140 colleges, which offer BEd courses but even last year more than 40 per cent seats could not be fulfilled.
Sunil Agarwal, president of Association of Self Financed institutes of Uttarakhand, told The Pioneer that fewer admissions would make things very tough for the private colleges.
He informed that NCTE’s recent directive — to make only the Diploma in Elementary Education (DEl Ed) qualified candidates eligible for teaching in the primary schools of the country — is the chief cause of the student disinterest. The primary school teachers constitute the bulk of government teachers (about 75 per cent) and the NCTE guideline bars the BEd qualified candidates for becoming primary teachers.
Agarwal said that there is no point in conducting an entrance examination when the number of applicants is less than the number of seats. It is worth mentioning here that the students in Uttarakhand have to give multiple BEd entrance examinations as Garhwal University, Kumaun University and Sri Dev Suman University conduct their separate entrance examinations while many states like Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan which are much bigger than Uttarakhand conduct a single entrance examination for the B Ed courses of all the colleges.
Uttarakhand had witnessed unprecedented mushrooming of private BEd colleges in the recent years as students believed that a BEd degree would help them in getting a much desired government job but now these colleges are facing an uncertain future due to lack of students.