National Council for Teacher Education


National Council for Teacher Education is a statutory body of Indian government set up under the National Council for Teacher Education Act, 1993 in 1995 is to formally oversee standards, procedures and processes in the Indian education system.
This council functions for the central as well as state governments on all matter with regard to the Teacher Education and its secretariat is located in the Department of Teacher Education and National Council of Educational Research and Training. Despite the successful functioning in terms of educational field, it is facing difficulties in ensuring the maintenance of the standards of teacher education and preventing the increase in the number of substandard teacher education institutions in the country.

History

Before 1995, the NCTE had existed since 1993 as a government advisory body to look after development and progress of "teacher education". The NCTE was then only a department of the National Council of Educational Research and Training. As per the NCTE's own admission, it failed in its objective of overlooking and, to an extent, regularising norms and processes in teachers' education in India because of lack of formal jurisdiction. To that effect, the National Policy on Education, 1986 allowed the setting up of a government authorised institution with formal powers.

Objectives

It relates to different academic activities pertaining to the teacher education programmes. It provides leadership and coordinates different types.
- Coordinate the academic activities on teacher education.
- Develop Curriculum Frameworks and Model Syllabi.
- Prepare guidelines for conducting academic activities in Teacher Education Institutions.
- Conduct Research in the field of Teacher Education.
- Provide Resource support in the field of teacher education.
- Develop database on various aspects pertaining to the teacher education.

Current scope

NCTE forms an extremely critical structure of the Indian government's National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education 2009, and has been the organisation that developed the year 2009 draft of the same framework.
As of 2007, the NCTE has its headquarters in New Delhi apart from regional representations in many other cities. Four official 'Regional Committees' of NCTE operate from Jaipur, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar and Bhopal handling the Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western regions respectively. The councils are responsible for recognising 'teacher training institutions'. It is reported that as on 1 January 2007, "7461 teacher training institutions offering 9045 courses have been recognised by NCTE with an approved intake of 7.72 lakh teacher trainees."
NCTE completed and recognized the revised Regulations 2014. Such includes:
The Ministry of Human Resource Department, Deptt. of Social Education and Literacy has authorized National Council of Educational Research & Training to lay down the curriculum and evaluation procedure for elementary education and to develop framework of national curriculum under clause a of Sub-Section 6 of Section 7 of the Act vide its Gazette Notification