NEP 2020: Central govt notifies 4-year integrated teacher education programme

NEP 2020 ITEP: The central government has announced the four-year integrated teacher education program (ITEP) specially designed for school teachers, which will be offered by more than 45 institutes across the nation from January 2022. The program comes under the National Education Policy 2020, where dual-major bachelor's degrees will be offered under ITEP, integrating basic BA and BSc degrees with BEd. According to an official statement issued by Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, "A major initiative in teacher education! 4 Year ITEP, a dual major holistic bachelor’s degree, offering B.A.B.Ed./B.Sc.B.Ed/B.Com.B.Ed. is launched by NCTE covering one of the major mandates of NEP 2020," the minister tweeted. These courses will help candidates save one year for those who are pursuing a BEd after completing a bachelor's degree, which currently takes 5 years.

NEP 2020: Integrated Teacher Education Programme

According to National Education Policy 2020, teacher recruitment from 2030 will be purely based on "only through ITEP". According to an official statement issued by the Ministry of Education on Wednesday, the ITEP course will be offered to candidates in pilot mode in about 50 selected multidisciplinary institutions across the country. Notably, the curriculum of the course designed by the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) which comes under the Ministry of Education will be available for all students on the official website. This course is specially designed to help the students who choose to teach as a profession after clearing school.

“Admission for the course will be carried out by the National Testing Agency (NTA) through the National Common Entrance Test (NCET). This course will be offered by multidisciplinary institutions and will become the minimal degree qualification for schoolteachers,” the statement added.

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