Dec. 24: No solution is in sight to the crisis over the primary teacher training institutes declared illegal by Calcutta High Court, though officials in Delhi denied dragging their feet.

The National Council for Technical Education (NCTE) has sent a letter to the state with a slew of questions, but no promise to remove the uncertainty over the future of 75,000 young men and women.

“The letter does not suggest a quick solution. It contains certain queries, but the council has not made any commitment that the impasse will end once we send the answers,” a state government official said.

The court had in October declared 138 primary teacher training institutes illegal for running without the manda-tory approval of the national council. Most of the institutes did not have the infrastructure to comply with the council’s norms. Some of them had even been offering one-year courses when the stipulation was a two-year one.

The ruling put the future of thousands of former students under a cloud as the certificates many of them had used for jobs suddenly became illegal.

The state’s primary education system has virtually been paralysed as nearly 40,000 teaching posts are lying vacant. To fill the vacancies, the government will need candidates with valid certificates.

Council officials in Delhi said they were wary of taking steps that could suggest it was ready to accept degrees offered by “illegal” institutes.

The council has in the past frequently faced allegations of allowing substandard teacher training institutions to proliferate. In 2006, a committee had recommended that the council be scrapped. The HRD ministry had even drafted a bill to revoke the NCTE Act.

Council officials denied dragging their feet on the Bengal crisis. “We would want to resolve the crisis as soon as possible. But a proper procedure has to be followed.”

A source said that simply recognising degrees of all students from the proscribed institutions would amount to neglect of quality concerns. The council, he added, would first establish the credentials of the students. Recognition of degrees will follow for those deemed qualified enough.

“We can make some concessions in quality. But if a student is, say, a school dropout, he wouldn’t deserve a teacher training certificate,” the source added.

A state official said the council had wanted to know how many students undertook the course between 1995 and 2006 and how many were jobless. It has also sought details of the students’ academic records.

Foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee had last month promised a solution to the crisis “very soon”. The matter had been raised before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when he came to Calcutta early this month. Several petitions have been made to the human resource development minister.