Rajya Sabha passes National Council for Teacher Education (Amendment) Bill

NEW DELHI: The Rajya Sabha on Thursday passed the National Council for Teacher Education (Amendment) Bill, 2019 that seeks to retrospectively grant recognition to certain institutions running teacher education courses as well as grant retrospective permission to start new courses.
The Bill amends the National Council for Teacher Education Act, 1993.
The Bill grants retrospective recognition to institutions which offered teacher education courses after the establishment of the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) until the academic year 2017-18.
The Bill also seeks to grant retrospective permission to start a new course or training in teacher education to institutions which satisfy certain conditions and which have offered teacher education courses after the establishment of the NCTE until the academic year 2017-2018.
In his reply, Human Resources Development Minister Prakash Javadekar said that granting retrospective permission was necessary as the fate of thousands of students who completed courses from unrecognized institutes would be in jeopardy as their degrees would not be recognized anywhere.
He also clarified that during the last three years no permission has been given for any new B.Ed. (teacher training) colleges.