NCTE not to insist on undertaking from institutions for the present

The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) has submitted before the Madras High Court that its condition that teacher education institutions should undertake within 21 days that they would fulfil the council’s revised norms, would not be enforced during the pendency of a writ petition.

The norms related to infrastructural and instructional facilities, enhanced endowment and reserve fund, qualification of teaching staff, curriculum and implementation strategies in view of the changing duration/intake of programme offered in the institutions within the time frame allowed by the council.

Counsel for the NCTE made the submission when a writ petition challenging certain clauses of the NCTE (Recognition, norms and procedural regulations) 2014 came up for hearing before Justice T.S. Sivagnanam.

In the petition filed through counsel R.Suresh Kumar, the Tamil Nadu Self-Financing College of Education Management Association, represented by its secretary S.Vijayakumar, said that hitherto teacher education institutions were governed by the 2009 NCTE regulations.

The council had notified new regulations called the NCTE (Recognition, norms and procedural regulations) 2014 which came into force on December 1.

The latest regulations have introduced more provisions and modified the already existing ones. The council said the institutions should adhere to the new regulations, norms and standards for the educational programmes.

Following the notification, the NCTE said the institutions should submit an undertaking within 21 days that they would fulfil the revised norms.

The new regulations had introduced some drastic changes in respect of duration of some of the teacher education courses and the institutions’ minimum intake capacity.

The norms had been revised for the eligibility of an institution to conduct a teacher education programme in future. Some of the provisions in the new regulations were not only arbitrary, injurious and prejudicial to society, but also impracticable, irrational and illogical, the petitioner said.

The Judge posted the matter for further hearing on March 16.