With the Union Government issuing notification for amended National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) Act after its passage in both Houses of the Parliament, decks are cleared for the retrospective grant of permission for the Special Basic Teacher Certificate (BTC) course conducted by different District Institutes of Education and Training (DIET) in Uttarakhand.
It would prove beneficial for more than 17,000 teachers of the Government-run primary schools. Notably, in the absence of recognition, they were under threat of losing their jobs. The education department would now apply for in retrospection permission of recognition for special BTC courses offered by it from the years from 2000 to 2016.
The Rajya Sabha (RS) in its recently concluded winter session had passed the National Council for Teacher Education Bill (Amended)-2019 which grants retrospective recognition to the teachers’ education courses of certain institutions. The bill had earlier been cleared by the Lok Sabha.
In Uttarakhand, there more than 17,000 serving teachers who were appointed on the basis of special BTC course.
The Bachelor of Education (BEd) qualified teachers were imparted an in-service training of special BTC in different DIETs from the year 2001 to 2016 to make them eligible to teach in primary classes. However, in 2016, it was realised that the all-important recognition from NCTE was not taken by the education department of Uttarakhand for special BTC course.
The plea of the department to grant recognition in retrospection was turned down by NCTE as it violates the very Act by which it was governed.
As per the new guidelines of the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry, the Diploma in Elementary Education (DElEd) qualified candidates are alone eligible to teach the primary students. The HRD ministry had made it clear that after March 2019, all primary teachers who did not have a DElEd degree or BTC certificate would be removed from the posts of the primary teachers.
The order had triggered panic as the threat of losing jobs kept dangling over the heads of thousands of trained serving teachers after March 2019.
The problem of these teachers is now sorted out by the passage of NCTE amendment bill in the Parliament and the subsequent notification issued by the Union Government.