The fate of 600 students admitted in the first Diploma in Elementary Education (D.El.Ed) course in 12 District Institutes of Education and Training (DIET) of Uttarakhand, hangs in balance as the National Council Teacher Education (NCTE) is yet to recognise the institutes. The president of the association of self-financed institutes, Sunil Agarwal told media persons here on Monday that the NCTE has provided its recognition only to DIET Gauchar in Chamoli.
The Uttarakhand Vidhyalayi Shiksha Parishad (UVSP) had conducted an entrance examination for the first D.El.Ed course in the month of July last year. In the examination more than 55000 candidates appeared. Agarwal said that NCTE has rejected the applications for recognition of DIETs of Udham Singh Nagar, Haridwar, Nainital and Almora while it has raised objections on the applications of remaining eight colleges.
Blaming the officers of education department for being ignorant of the rules and regulations of the NCTE, Agarwal said that these officers are misguiding the students about the status of recognition of the D.El.Ed course. He said that the state government is not allowing the private colleges to start the D.El.Ed course on the plea that the government colleges are enough to cater to the requirement of primary teachers. “In neighboring Uttar Pradesh there are 1000 and in Haryana more than 300 private colleges which offer D.El. Ed courses and Uttarakhand Government by blocking NOC of private colleges is prompting students to migrate to other states for doing this course”, he said.
The Director of State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT), Kusum Pant told The Pioneer that NCTE has raised some objections on the recognition applications of DIETs for D.El.Ed course and the department is working on removing these objections. She claimed that the students pursuing the course should not worry about the recognition aspect of their course. It is worth mentioning here that NCTE has made D.El.Ed as mandatory prerequisite for being appointed as primary teachers due to which large number of candidates want to do this course now and prefer it over B.Ed. degree.