Here's good news for teachers who don't have a BEd degree and are unable to attain one because of their professional obligations.
BEd through distance learning is set to be launched in nine colleges of Vinoba Bhave University (VBU) spread across Dhanbad, Giridih, Hazaribagh, Koderma, Ramgarh and Chatra. On Sunday, a two-member team from the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) comprising Gopal Krishna Rao of Mahatma Gandhi central university, Wardha (Maharashtra), and Niraj Saxena of Meerut University inspected the infrastructure at the colleges.
They are St Columba's College, Hazaribagh; Maa Vidhyavasini College of Education, Hazaribagh; Giridih College; Gautam Buddha Teachers' Training College, Hazaribagh; Daulat Mahto Memorial Teachers' Training College, Hazaribagh; Grizzly College of Education, Koderma; Dr S Radhakrishnan Teachers' Training College, Ramgarh; Al Iqra Teachers Training College, Dhanbad; and Tathagat Teachers' Training College, Dhanbad.
The development comes at a time VBU is embroiled in a controversy over affiliation of some BEd colleges offering regular course.
Nevertheless, vice chancellor Gurdeep Singh said: "We are ready to launch correspondence BEd course in the nine colleges from the present session itself as all necessary infrastructure, including separate building for BEd and required number of faculty members, are ready."
According to director of distance education of VBU Kaushal Kishore Srivastava, such correspondence programmes were meant for working professionals and hence, prospective candidates must have minimum two years' of teaching experience.
"We will start the course as soon as we get the approval from NCTE. The fees for the two-year course will be much lower as compared to that of the regular one, which costs around Rs 1.21 lakh. An entrance test may also be conducted for selection of students," Srivastava added.
A plan is also afoot to launch MEd in distance mode in some colleges like Al Iqra Teachers' Training College, Dhanbad and Tathagat Teachers' Training College for which NCTE inspection is pending.
Vice chancellor Singh further said that they had also completed preparation for starting BA, BCom and BSc through distance mode in some colleges.
"But we can only launch these programmes once the UGC formulates regulations for distance education courses. We have already prepared study materials for the proposed courses, which were appreciated by a UGC team that visited the university headquarters in Hazaribagh as a part of our silver jubilee celebrations last week," he added.
