The recently published draft NCTE (Recognition Norms and Procedure) Regulations, 2025, has attracted great attention across stakeholders—and rightly so. After all, teacher education has remained one of the core focus areas for educationists and administrators for several decades, as it forms the bedrock of any strong education system. These draft regulations by the premier body of teacher education are critical for the transition towards the NEP 2020-defined education paradigm. However, amidst this, a peculiar criticism has emerged from a section of academicians which needs necessitates a closer look.

Operationalizing this drastic national education policy is a herculean task in a country as vast and diverse as India. Bringing such a promising policy framework to life, as envisaged under NEP 2020—to which I have also contributed since its inception—requires both the introduction of novel, future-ready elements and the rational elimination of legacy structures that may no longer serve their intended purpose.

Advertisement

As part of its consultative approach, the NCTE recently invited public suggestions on its new Draft Regulations 2025. Among other proposals, it suggested phasing out courses that have struggled to remain relevant as part of a broader effort to revamp the teacher education landscape. This is necessary, for any new education paradigm must be supported by talent prepared through aligned and contemporary training pathways. A central reform in this regard is the replacement of all existing teacher education programmes with a unified four-year BA/BSc/BCom-Ed programme.

One suggestion has been to phase out the B.El.Ed. programme and replace it with the new Integrated Teacher Education Programme (ITEP) to ensure standardization and avoid student inconvenience. The B.El.Ed. programme, launched by faculty from the Department of Education at Delhi University, was a well-intentioned initiative when it was launched. However, it could not take off well due to many structural issues within the education system.
Certain groups and individuals who were part of the B.El.Ed. programme understandably wish to see it continue because they were instrumental in its design. However, this also raises a fundamental question: Who should be at the center of education discourse—the student, the curriculum, or the curriculum designers? Sadly, our education system is more concerned about who designs the curriculum instead of those for whom it is designed. This is an undesirable situation for any education system, and it also raises the question about our commitment to larger goals. If one examines the arguments of those who wish to continue this programme, they seem more concerned with preserving the course as a concept than addressing the evolving needs of students and teachers.

What is needed now is a broader, future-oriented debate about the kind of content and training we must provide our teachers to prepare them to holistically educate future generations. Instead, we seem caught in a backward-looking defence of legacy programmes.
To be fair, this is a common human tendency. We often develop an emotional attachment to what we have helped create, sometimes at the expense of adapting to new realities. But calling a 30-year-old course “innovation” may risk overlooking how much the world—and the educational ecosystem—has changed. Innovation must evolve and scale, not become a sentimental defence of the status quo.

ITEP, on the other hand, has been developed to address long-standing issues in the teacher education space in India. It aims to bring coherence, correct irregularities, and ensure better alignment with system-wide reforms. While B.El.Ed. was designed with good intentions, it struggled to expand beyond limited geography and failed to attract broader institutional adoption. Crucially, its scope remains limited to upper primary training, whereas diploma courses serve the primary level and B.Ed. programmes cover post-primary to senior secondary levels. I was the part of some the committees of ITEP and focus Group on Teacher Education (by NCERT), I have closely observed that the quality of education lies with quality of training which teacher get. We need to welcome all the good changes in the field of teacher education without any biases.

Moreover, being a four-year standalone programme, B.El.Ed. has consistently struggled to align with contemporary postgraduate structures. For instance, it neither fits neatly into the UGC credit system nor ensures smooth transitions for students seeking higher studies—especially under the NEP’s proposed academic bank of credits and 4-year schemes. Of course, the larger question about standardization and university autonomy is important and must be collectively thought about. There is no doubt we should keep a tab on the NCTE and their suggestions, whether they align with a larger educational reform agenda or not. As academicians, it is our responsibility to suggest the inclusion of innovation and flexibility. Still, the continuation of an old programme, which has very little chance of reform, will not serve any purpose.

Nonetheless, ITEP addresses many of these structural limitations by offering a four-year degree that combines disciplinary study with education training. Students graduate with a dual advantage: a general degree and a specialization in preparatory, foundational, or secondary-level education. This flexibility is essential for creating a professional teaching workforce equipped for the future.

Those who wish to continue the programme, their views can be understood as artists who are very much affectionate to their own art that he forgot the evolution and needs of society and refuse to acknowledge others’ art. We should sympathize and appreciates the existing and old products, but our students and society should not deprived of the new and holistic curriculum. At the same time, it is the responsibility of policymakers and administrators to balance competing views while keeping student outcomes at the center of reform.

All of us carry a degree of nostalgia for certain institutions, individuals, or programmes. But that sentiment cannot come at the cost of the promise that the future holds. The B.El.Ed. programme could be unique or innovative when it has beenintroduced but has lost all its uniqueness and innovative approach as time passes. Now, our academic system needs new programs that address not only current structural issues but also the needs of the students as they create friction in students’ academic journeys and no longer support the seamless progression envisioned under NEP 2020.

The same nostalgia can also be seen with some of NCTE’s suggestions, where it has proposed a part-time BEd and MEd programme. With all good intentions, these suggestions can not be called futuristic as they try to overlook the future challenges of Teacher education and how it will evolve with technological challenges.

In this context, ITEP is among the best, most future-ready options we can offer to aspiring teachers. It aligns with global trends, simplifies academic progression, and builds a coherent foundation for professional excellence in teaching. Constructive suggestions to strengthen ITEP are welcome, but resisting reform merely to preserve legacy programmes is a disservice to students and the larger education system we strive to strengthen.

(The writer is the Director of the Center of Policy Research and Governance, and he was part of the ITEP committee)