This year, a unified admission exam will be given for a newly announced programme that will grant undergraduate and teacher-training degrees concurrently.

Some academics are concerned that holding a National Common Entrance Test (NCET) for Class XII pass-outs seeking admission to the Integrated Teacher Education Programme (ITEP) may encourage private coaching and disadvantage students who do not have access to such tutoring.

"Admission for (sic) this course will be carried out by the National Testing Agency (NTA) through a single nationwide entrance test called NCET," the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) stated in a notification.

The NCTE had in October 2021 rolled out the four-year ITEP, which grants dual undergraduate and BEd degrees. The ITEP was offered in 2022-23 by a few institutions on a pilot basis. Students passing out of the course will get BSc-BEd, or BA-BEd or BCom-BEd degrees.

According to the notification, the ITEP will be offered in IITs, NITs, federal and state institutions, and government colleges beginning in 2023-24.

Other teacher education programmes, such as the two-year BEd, two-year MEd, and two-year DElEd, will remain available through universities and colleges. The NCTE is working on the ITEP syllabus.

Former National Institute of Open Schooling chairman N.K. Ambasht stated that the formats of entrance tests such as the Joint Entrance Examination-Main, JEE-Advanced, National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), and Common University Entrance Test (CUET) were designed to eliminate students rather than allow them to demonstrate their competence. According to him, the planned NCET would almost certainly follow this model of elimination-based selection, which would be detrimental to impoverished students.

“A large number of objective-type questions are asked (in the entrance tests). Students are getting training from coaching centres to crack these tests by adopting certain techniques rather than demonstrating their understanding and competency. This system is aimed at the elimination of most of the candidates. This helps those who get coaching. The poor and marginalised students are not able to perform,” Ambasht said.

Ambasht said the exams should have more tho­ught-provoking questions and there should be a bank of such questions.

Jitendra Sharma, a retired faculty member from a teacher training college in Jodhpur, said admissions to BEd, MEd and DElEd courses were now held through state-level entrance tests. The ITEP will enable students from across the country to compete.

“In a way, it will add to the glory of the teacher education course, which was not considered a priority. Also, it will encourage students to take coaching, which will proliferate,” Sharma said.

He said the private coaching industry had blossomed in recent years as performance in the board examinations no longer carried any weight during admission to higher courses.