The Ministry of Education (MoE) has announced a four-year Integrated Teacher Education Programme (ITEP) under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The programme will initially be offered by about 50 institutes across the nation from the 2022-23 academic session.
“A major initiative in teacher education! 4 Year ITEP, a dual major holistic bachelor’s degree, offering BA, BEd/BSc, BEd/BCom, BEd is launched by NCTE covering one of the major mandates of NEP 2020. #AatmanirbharBharat,” Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan had tweeted.
The Central government aims at making the four-year integrated BEd the minimum degree required for teaching by 2030.
The National Testing Agency (NTA) will oversee the overall admission procedure for this programme through its National Common Entrance Test (NET). The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) has designed the curriculum for the course to enable a student-teacher to get a degree in Education as well as a specialised subject such as History, Mathematics, Science, Arts, Economics, or Commerce.
Under ITEP, candidates who pursue a four-year BEd degree will get BA and BEd or BSc and BEd or BCom and BEd degrees together. With this programme, students can save a year because pursuing BEd after completing a bachelor’s degree currently takes five years.
The Integrated Teacher Education Programme (ITEP) will be available to all students who choose to teach as a profession after completing Class XII.
Prospective teachers passing out of ITEP in a multidisciplinary environment, grounded in Indian values and traditions and inculcating the needs of 21st century global standards will be helpful in shaping the future, according to the education ministry.
