No new teaching college: State Govt will not affiliate any new institute as there are few vacancies and many teachers

No new teaching college: State

Govt will not affiliate any new institute as there are few vacancies and many teachers

The state has too many teachers, but no quality. Worried about this, the state has stopped affiliating new teacher training colleges because a recent quality assessment found there are too many colleges, but no quality. In an audit, only 44 out of 291 colleges met quality standards although teacher training colleges have been mushrooming all over the state. Concerned about the quality of students who pass out of teacher education institutes (TEI), the latest government resolution issued on October 17, says the state will not affiliate any new institutes. Even, the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) will not approve new institutes. “There has been an unnecessary increase in the number of TEIs in the state, producing more teachers than the industry requires. From now on, not a single TEI will receive affiliation from the state government,” states the resolution, issued by NU Raurale, state under-secretary. The director of MSCERT will be the implementing authority and will see to it that the order is followed. Teacher education institutes have flourished across the country and there has been a 37% increase annually between 1995-2011. Maharashtra had 90,125 students from 1,405 TEIs in 2012-13 but there are vacancies only for 14,000 to 15,000 teachers. In 2004-05, there were 15,527 students from only 325 TEIs. A senior education official said it was found that such TEIs lacked quality. “In India, any class XII pass candidate can teach in a primary school after completing a two-year diploma course. For a teacher wanting to teach at the elementary stages of school education, lower academic qualifications are acceptable. But the attitude needs to change to produce better teachers,” said the official. Recently, a Supreme Court appointed high-powered commission criticised the NCTE for its failure to rein in “substandard” teacher education institutes (TEI). The commission, led by former Chief Justice of India JS Verma, said NCTE’s failure has led to commercialisation of TEIs, which is “adversely affecting the quality of teacher education”.