Starting with the education year 2016-17, 29 Government colleges and six universities in Odisha will offer Bachelor of Education (B Ed)) and Master of Education (M Ed) courses. The move is aimed to address the huge shortage of trained teachers in the State. While about 17,000 untrained teachers continue to teach in schools across the State, lack of enough seats in BEd and MEd courses meant that they were not able to get trained by the Government.
The School and Mass Education Department and the Higher Education Department of the State have started the preparatory work to implement the decision. All of these colleges and universities would apply to the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) for necessary approval by the end of this month. The decision was taken at a meeting attended by the principals and vice chancellors of colleges and universities recently.
The students would be able to study in these places in self-financing mode. The 29 colleges that will offer BEd courses are Sailabala Women’s College, BJB College, Rajdhani College, SCS College of Puri, Khallikote College of Brahmapur, Government College in Koraput, Government College in Bhawanipatna, Rajendra College in Balangir, Panchayat College in Bargarh, Government College in Sundargarh, DD College of Keonjhar, MPC College of Baripada, FM College of Baleswar, Dhenkanal College, Government College of Phulbani, Bhadrak College, Government Women’s College in Balangir, KKS Women’s College in Baleswar, Women’s College in Dhenkanal, NG Women’s College in Aska, Government Women’s College in Bhawanipatna, Government Women’s College in Keonjhar, Government Women’s College in Jaipur, Government Women’s College in Baripada, GM College of Sambalpur, Government Women’s College of Sambalpur, Government Women’s College of Sundargarh, Rourkela Government College and SG Women’s College of Rourkela.
All of these colleges are already offering graduation courses. The six universities that would offer MEd courses are Utkal University, Sambalpur University, Brahmapur University, North Odisha University, FM University and Srijagannath Sanskrit University. Starting next year, a four-year integrated course will also be offered in the above mentioned 29 colleges. Students would be able to enter these courses after +2. These students would be trained on BSc BEd and BA BEd in these colleges based on their preference and performance.
Apart from this, a three-year MEd course would also be introduced in the universities and colleges. The students enrolling in this course after their graduation would be eligible to apply for jobs where both BEd and MEd certification is mandatory. It may be noted that the State Government will also introduce two-year BEd and MEd courses in all 15 existing teacher’s training colleges instead of the current one year ones from this educational year. This decision has been taken to enhance the quality and depth of the education. These 15 colleges have 1,728 BEd and 120 MEd seats.