The AICTE, the technical education regulator, has urged prominent engineering and management colleges to offer BA, BSc, or BCom programmes in addition to BEd.

The Integrated Teacher Education Programme (ITEP), which has been in place in certain types of universities since 2021, has decreased the number of years required to obtain a BEd degree from five to four.

The initiative has alarmed several academics, who believe these universities lack the resources and infrastructure to carry out such a scheme.

Academics pointed out that the AICTE's proposal contradicted the regulatory National Council for Teacher Education's (NCTE) policy, which has so far allowed only state universities, central universities, institutions of national importance, and institutions of eminence to offer the integrated programme.

The NCTE had notified the ITEP in October 2021 for Class XII passouts who would pursue BA, BSc, or BCom with BEd in an integrated way. The ITEP is a four-year programme, as opposed to the five-year undergraduate and BEd programmes that are being undertaken separately.

Mamta Rani Agarwal, AICTE adviser, said in a circular distributed to all AICTE-approved professional colleges that the ITEP will benefit students by saving a year and allowing meritorious students to enter the teaching profession.

"It is thus suggested that all multidisciplinary higher education institutions, particularly those rated A and above by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council, be encouraged to initiate the ITEP... in their institutions," according to the circular.

Jitendra Sharma, a former faculty member at a teacher-training college in Jodhpur, said the AICTE-approved colleges were failing to attract students and about 50 per cent of their seats were vacant.

He said this was a pointer to their failure to maintain standards.

"If engineering institutions are allowed to run teacher-training courses that are not their domain," he says, "the quality of the programme will be a major concern."

He claimed that certain state government universities were also ignoring quality, but the NCTE was taking no action against them. He gave the example of a university in Udaipur that, according to him, offers BEd and MEd programmes without any regular faculty members.

A university in Jodhpur, for example, offers BEd programmes through employing guest instructors. To begin a teacher-training course, an institution must have at least 10 regular faculty members, according to NCTE standards.

Similarly, a university in Jodhpur offers BEd courses by hiring guest faculty. According to NCTE norms, an institution has to have at least 10 regular faculty members to start a teacher-training course.

“Going by the trend, the engineering institutions, which are mostly in the private sector, will run the ITEP through guest faculty members,” Sharma said.

A former NCTE member said it had so far allowed only university-level institutions to offer ITEP courses.

The AICTE’s circular to engineering and management colleges is in conflict with this policy.

The IITs, prodded by the government, have decided to consider launching the ITEP after discussing the proposals with their academic bodies.

Some of the sources sent an email to AICTE chairman T.G. Sitharam asking why engineering and management institutions were being encouraged to start the ITEP. His response is awaited.