The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) has given validity to the D.El.Ed (open distance learning) programme conducted by the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) in keeping with the Patna High Court order.
This would bring relief to a large number of candidates who had done the 18-month D.El.Ed) course from NIOS, but were earlier not found eligible for the post of primary teachers in the Bihar government schools after the NCTE made it clear to the government in 2019 that the 18-month NIOS course was meant only for the in-service teachers and it could not be extended for future appointments.
In a letter to additional chief secretary, department of education, RK Mahajan, NCTE deputy secretary Dr Vijay Kumar R wrote on Tuesday that the institution had decided to accept the verdict of the Patna High Court in the matter.
“The decision is taken pursuant to appropriate directions from the ministry of human resource development,” the letter said.
A senior official of the education department said the Bihar government would also abide by the government order after the NCTE validity. “The government had only gone by the NCTE earlier orders in the past,” he said, adding that in the midst of pandemic, however, fresh recruitments are unlikely to begin too soon and teachers’ eligibility test (TET) was also a mandatory requirement for teachers.
Hearing a bunch of petitions involving over 450 petitioners, the Patna HC bench of Justice Prabhat Kumar Jha had in January directed the government of Bihar to allow the petitioners to apply within one month and consider the case of the petitioners for appointment on the post of primary teachers.
The primary education director’s earlier order “that certificates of the teachers/candidates working in government/ govt-aided / private unaided schools who have completed D.El.Ed. training through NIOS during their service, will not be valid/ considered for selection of primary teachers in the government of Bihar”, citing the NCTE letter that the course was only for 18 months and not in keeping with NCTE regulations that mandates two-year course, was termed “illegal, unsustainable and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution”.
“From bare perusal of the decisions, it is apparent that the NCTE recognized one-time the course in D.El.Ed. conducted by NIOS. The relaxation of some period was only granted to the in-service teachers who had not obtained the required degree training course such as B.Ed./D.El.Ed. which is made minimum requisite qualification for appointment on the post of teachers in elementary and primary schools, but it is nowhere mentioned that the said course cannot be treated at par with the two years training course,” the court had observed.
Nearly three-lakh teachers were enrolled with the abridged 18-month DLEd programme of NIOS. According to a senior official of the department, many candidates carried the ambition of joining government service after completing the NIOS programme, which was hit by controversy over duration of the programme.
