Calcutta, May 11: Primary teachers’ training institutes that had earlier offered a one-year course have got the permission to conduct a one-year bridge course so that their students can meet the national standard.

A letter from the Bhubaneswar office of the National Council of Technical Education (NCTE), allowing the bridge course, reached state school education minister Partha De this afternoon.

According to norms fixed in 2003 to ensure the quality of education provided by primary schools across the country, only those who have comple-ted two years’ training after clearing Class XII with at least 50 per cent marks can be teachers.

But the Bengal government was allowing primary teachers’ training institutes to offer one-year courses and admit students who had merely cleared Class X.

Calcutta High Court dec- lared these courses illegal in 2008, casting a cloud on the careers of thousands who had either passed from these institutes and were working as teachers, or were still trainees.

Over 70,000 candidates were affected by the order. Around 17,000 of them will immediately benefit from the bridge course. The others have either studied only till Class X or se-cured less than 50 per cent in their Class XII exams. They will have to take the Class XII exams and secure 50 per cent or more to be eligible for the certificates.

The NCTE comes under the Union human resource development ministry, to which the state government and even Mamata Banerjee and Pranab Mukherjee had made several petitions for a solution.

The Telegraph had reported on September 4, 2009, the NCTE plan to allow the bridge course for students who met its eligibility criteria.

“We are very happy that the NCTE has given us this permission,” minister Partha De said today. “We had written to the HRD ministry immediately after the court order.”

De said the state primary education board would open a unit that will frame the bridge course curriculum. It will be a correspondence course.

The earlier one-year course had been allowed following norms set by the state primary education board, but the court upheld the NCTE’s norms saying a central law would prevail in case of a conflict between a state and a central law.