The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) has declared the introduction of the Integrated Teacher Education Program (ITEP) from the current academic year 2021-22. The program is being appreciated as a start to finer teacher training, there have already been major mistakes found in the notification issued by the gazette which is being discussed and shared on online forums.
BJ Rao, vice-chancellor, University of Hyderabad (UoH), says, “The current coaching which is provided below the formal teacher education programs is poor. Additionally, as teachers are subject matter experts they must also consider the sensibilities of students. If central universities take up the ITEP as a part of the Four Year college boy Programme (FYUP) structure, it’ll improve the standard of teacher coaching.” NEP committee is deliberating upon the validity of adopting ITEP. To date, the institute doesn’t offer a BEd program.
Pankaj Arora, an academician of Central Institute of Education (CIE) and Director of University of urban center (DU), states, “ITEP is a decent quality integrated program. Students of ITEP can study strategies to reinforce the training process for his/her chosen subjects in the classroom.” Adopting the program Arora says that as per the NCTE, within the 1st year, ITEP is going to be introduced at around fifty establishments across the state as a test. “There is no distinct clarity on the names and the details of the procedure at those chosen institutes,” he says.
Education ministry notifies four-year Integrated Teacher Education Programme
Arora highlights problems with the gazette notification sent by NCTE regarding ITEP. “As per clause 2.2, every semester of the ITEP is going to be a hundred and twenty-five days long. For a five-day workweek, this amounts to twenty-five weeks, whereas for a six-day week, this may be around twenty weeks. As per University Grants Commission(UGC), every semester should be 14-15 weeks long. Thus, this may bring an inequality within the calendars of teacher education institutes and also within the rest of the university,” he says.
As per another clause, students are going to be admitted into the associated subject after passing an entrance exam, however, they’ll have the option to modify their specialization after one month. “Students have been included in a specific subject course due to their interest and expertise in it. Joining them with another cluster that incorporates a different mindset might not be a good plan,” says Arora. An NCTE official says that instead of textbook coaching, the ITEP has been shaped to keep all prerequisites of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 in mind. The program focuses on all specifications, as well as foundational acquisition, native languages, and holistic learning.
