BHUBANESWAR: In a bid to improve teacher education in Odisha, the School and Mass Education department is planning to carry out an audit of the quality of teachers engaged in government schools after clearing their Bachelors in Education (BEd) from other states.
Besides, the BEd courses being offered in self-financing mode by state-run degree colleges and universities will face academic audits by the Higher Education department. The decisions were taken at a recent review meeting on the status of teacher education in Odisha chaired by chief secretary Pradeep Jena.
With restrictions on the number of BEd seats in Odisha and private institutions banned from offering the course, aspirants mostly pursue the degree from private BEd colleges in other states, primarily neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.
At present, there are 29 teacher training institutions - universities and teacher education colleges - offering BEd in the state with the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) recently restoring recognition of 16 such institutions. Recognition of the institutions was withdrawn three years back due to a lack of the required number of teachers and infrastructure. While 10 such institutions have 100 BEd seats each, one has 150 seats and the rest have 50 each.
It was decided the department will build an academic and pedagogy profile of out-of-state teachers appointed during the last three years. “This will help us examine the quality of courses being offered by private BEd colleges in the neighbouring states vis-a-vis what is being offered here,” said an official of the School and Mass Education department.