NCTE Regional Office closure decision decried

Various teachers’ forums have strongly opposed the Union Government’s decision to close down all National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) regional offices, including the one 

in Odisha.

The World Federation of Teachers’ Union (FISE) and the All India Federation of University and College Teachers’ Organisations (AIFUCTO) have urged the Centre to withdraw the decision and the State Government to take steps to ensure that the regional office not shifted from Bhubaneswar.

The NCTE Eastern Regional Office here had been controlling and managing courses from Diploma and Elementary Education to Bachelor in Education in Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Odisha, Sikim, Tripura and West Bengal while the other three regional offices at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, Jaipur in Rajasthan and Bangalore in Karnataka are managing such affairs for rest of the States.

However, the NCTE, in its 46th general body meeting held in January, decided to close down all the four regional offices in the name of machine-based work.

If the regional office at Bhubaneswar is closed, as many as 15,114 untrained teachers serving under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan would be facing problems in getting training. Besides, as many as 2,015 teacher training institutes having 1,69,963 would be affected, lamented FISE general secretary Amiya Kumar Mohanty and AIFUCTO vice-president Manas Behera in a statement.

Informing that the State Government has already provided one acre of land at Samantarapur for its permanent campus and the NCTE head office in Delhi sanctioned Rs 42,18,482 for construction of its boundary wall, they urged the Union Government to reconsider its decision and the State Government to take all steps to see that the regional office at Bhubaneswar is not shifted.