That the education sys- tem in West Bengal is sullied by politicisation that does not spare even primary education is not refut- able. Teachers’ training institu- tions, starved of basic infrastru- cture, have alarmingly added to the mess. In a recent move, the West Bengal government has cancelled the approval of 253 colleges of the state’s 624 private B.Ed colleges after investigations revealed anomalies and mal- practice at these institutions. The Baba Saheb Ambedkar Edu- cation University (BSAUE), res- ponsible for controlling their functioning, found that they failed to meet the NCTE norms. Previously also, NCTE, the statutory body for ensuring quality of training for aspiring teachers, was justified in expres- sing concern that private insti- tutions in West Bengal had hard- ly cared to seek recognition from the National Council in defiance of the Act under which it was set up in 1993. Rigorous scrutiny by the Council had led to the clo- sure of substandard institutions. Capitalizing on the increas- ing marketability of B.Ed degree, a good number of institutions mushroomed in the country with sinister mercantile motives which, after securing nominal affiliation from universities, flouted all norms of teacher edu- cation by diluting the set curric- ula and even opening distance courses that proved ridiculously substandard in view of impart- ing professional competence. Hence, the necessity to have a statutory body to manage teach- er education was felt. The NCTE, made a statuto- ry body in 1993 and constituted formally in 1995, has laid down norms, standards and guidelines for quality teacher education. In the process, it has identified and largely eradicated the main cause of deteriorating standards ~ correspondence and distance education B.Ed courses run without proper scrutiny of can- didates, and basically to earn money by improper means. Reportedly, in many cases, false certificates showing teaching experience were forwarded by such institutions. Many of them failed to obtain the NCTE recog- nition essentially because of the state’s inability to provide the required grants. Many state gov- ernments failed to provide re- sources required to maintain the laid-down minimum teacher- student ratio of 1:10. What West Bengal, largely responsible for the plight of these institutions, should ack- nowledge is that there is no virtue in numbers. This is, no doubt, in keeping with the Left Front’s policy of increasing the number of degree holders, many of whom remained unemployed and were unemployable. Meanwhile, the regional office of the NCTE served notice to all teachers’ training institu- tions asking them to adopt necessary procedures for af- filiation within the stipulated period. The Council even derecognised such institutions and asked universities not to take exams of such courses which were so dec- lared. But who cares? It may be re- called that in 2006, Calcutta High Co- urt passed an order holding the admis- sion of students to the B.Ed courses for 2005-06 in 36 col- leges in the state as illegal because they had not been recognised by the NCTE. What occasioned surprise was how the authorities could grant affil- iation to those private institu- tions without the necessary in- frastructure. It was learned that most of these illegal colleges had been running B.Ed courses for more than four decades. Follow- ing a PIL in Calcutta High Court, the revelation came. Interestingly, the ministry of school education in West Bengal established the School Service Commission to appoint school teachers, and it was made clear that B.Ed should no longer be an essential requirement to appear at the selection test. The inten- tion of delinking B Ed from teac- hing jobs was unequivocal. This enigmatic phenome- non continued to be sustained in the field of education for years for unknown reasons. It is a tragedy that West Bengal is either unwilling to learn from its mistakes or has consciously decided to sacrifice quality in favour of numbers. Admittedly, if qualitative improvement of teacher educa- tion is related to the quality of school education, and if the NCTE is authorized to develop teacher education accordingly, it has to have its say in the appo- intment of school teachers. Is the NCTE in a quandary ~ or is it that only a paper tiger has been produced by an Act of Parlia- ment, an Act which needs strengthening? While the 30-year-old body has been given statutory pow- ers, constitutionally it faces tur- bulent weather charged with politico-educational rainstorms. Different opinions are aired, such as i) education is a state subject, so what authority does the NCTE have to dictate terms? ii) universi- ties are autono- mous bodies and they possess ab- solute authority to affiliate colleges and offer degrees, and iii) what mea- sures can NCTE adopt if any state delinks B.Ed from teaching jobs. The objecti- ves of NCTE were no doubt laudable. But because the can- vas was made so vast, there were many other regulatory bodies already operating on the scene for years. Their jurisdictions and mandates had wide overlaps with the NCTEs. The most obvious overlaps showed up between the UGC Act and the NCTE Act with respect to regulating teacher education in colleges and uni- versities. Also, there were dis- turbing overlaps with the con- stitutional responsibilities of some other bodies and of the state governments themselves. These are related to func- tions like laying down courses for teacher education, norms for recruiting teachers, fixing stu- dent fees and providing mini- mum physical facilities. The Supreme Court did have a gen- eral solution of sorts: if in doubt, follow that later Act ~ a later Act might not be a saner one. Compared to its broad spe- ctrum mandate, the NCTE had meager human and physical resources. For covering the whole gamut of teacher educa- tion including research and training of persons for equip- ping them to teach, NCTE had little resources to spend, no reg- ular staff with credible educa- tional accomplishments, and weak infrastructure in compari- son to UGC, NCERT or any of the state education departm- ents. It could not be expected to play the vital role of a regulator of teacher education in the Indi- an perspective. As to the macro- economic teacher manpower projections or planning as part of the NCTE’s job, these needed additional faculty resources far beyond what NCTE ever had or was even promised. It was not for nothing that the Union HRD ministry’s deci- sion in 2009 not to disband the NCTE flew in the face of the rec- ommendation of a former union education secretary that NCTE ought to be scrapped because it had failed to regulate the stan- dards of instruction. The recommendation, advanced to the Centre in 2007, had suggested that the NCTE be replaced with a “new stronger, teacher education regulatory structure”. Implicit was admis- sion of the failure of the “regula- tor” to fulfill its primary task. Though it would not be dis- solved ~ NCTE got a breather ~ its wings would be clipped and its regulatory powers could be entrusted to individual univer- sities. But the idea of allowing the NCTE to retain a wholly notional existence, it seems, was as illogical as it is inexplicable. But, perhaps, it would have benefited the process of learn- ing if the repeal Bill were allowed to take its legislative course, leading to a more efficient regu- latory mechanism. Ironically, the government continued with the failed system while leaving the task of better teaching to the universities. The NCTE’s major failure has been its inability to regulate the spurious institutions that run teacher training courses by violating the rules. This has cre- ated the problem of recognition, nowhere perhaps as acutely as in Bengal where there have been, right from the beginning, the maximum number of insti- tutions operating without the necessary affiliation of the NCTE. Central to the problem is its failure to check the mush- rooming of unauthorised teach- ers’ training institutes. Its latest norms reveal that the NCTE is fast becoming a fossilized agency with little flexi- bility and innovative quality control ideas. It is high time the Council evolved into an effective monitoring agency with vision.

(The writer, a former Associate Professor, Department of English, Gurudas College, Kolkata, is presently with Rabindra Bharati University.)