Private B Ed colleges

The draft National Education Policy released by the Union Human Resource Development ministry immediately after the second NDA government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi took over, has, among other things, proposed shutting down private institutions that have been awarding B Ed degrees to thousands of teachers and potential teachers across the country. The reason cited by the draft National Education Policy is that the private teacher training institutes are infested with ‘mediocrity’ and ‘rampant corruption’, which in turn has produced half-baked teachers who are only ruining the future of millions of young people all over. The National Education Policy, while suggesting that the private teacher training institutions should be closed down on a ‘mission mode’, has also commented that ‘the future of the nation is truly at stake’ because of this. The National Education Policy has also described the private teacher training institutes, and more particularly the private B Ed colleges as ‘fake colleges’ which, if allowed to continue, will destroy the fundamentals of the educational institutions of the country. The National Education Policy also notes that there is a general lack of commitment for producing quality teachers and that the emphasis is more on earning money by literally selling the degrees instead of shaping teachers. There has been a general complaint that the quality of teachers and teaching has deteriorated across the country, and the Class X and Class XII Board examinations of the government schools are enough to understand the gravity of the situation. Likewise, those who have been to a private B Ed college knows how many really professionally qualified teaching faculty these have, how many periods of classes/lectures are actually taken, what are the improvements if any in the pass-outs of these private colleges as far as writing and teaching skills are concerned, and what attitudinal qualities these B Ed degree holders have actually acquired that makes them fit for teaching young people. This however does not indicate that the quality of teaching in the government-owned B Ed colleges are excellent and beyond the scope of any scrutiny and criticism. This also does not indicate that the quality of teaching in all our colleges, higher secondary schools and junior colleges is satisfactory. A random check of answer scripts of a basic subject like Assamese or English of Higher Secondary and under-graduate class students will reveal not just the quality of teachers, but also that of teachers.