Colleges in Uttar Pradesh offering Diploma in Elementary Education or DElEd, formerly known as BTC course, are struggling to find interested candidates willing to enrol in the programme.
After two phases of admissions, mere 45,153 candidates have taken admission to DElEd course in 2022-23 session, reveals information about admission received after the conclusion of the second phase college allotments on behalf of the Prayagraj-based office of the Examination Regulatory Authority (ERA), Uttar Pradesh.
“Till September 9, a total of 45,153 candidates had taken admission for the new session,” said a senior official of the state education department. “In the first phase, 30,982 candidates were enrolled. In the second phase now, another 14,171 candidates have taken admission,” he added.
Officials say the total admissions till now are around just 21% of the total seats of DElEd course on offer in colleges across U.P. This lack of interest among the candidates comes despite the fact that 2020 was a “zero session” with no admissions getting conducted owing to Covid-19 and even in 2021 the last date of applications had to be extended thrice in hope of attracting candidates. Around 1.32 lakh seats had gone vacant last year too.
“Now officials could seek permission of the state government and allow colleges to directly admit students against vacant seats of the course instead of through ERA, U.P.,” said another state education department official aware of the plan. “DElEd-2022 training session is set to start from September 14,” said Anil Bhushan Chaturvedi, secretary, ERA, UP.
{{/usCountry}}“Now officials could seek permission of the state government and allow colleges to directly admit students against vacant seats of the course instead of through ERA, U.P.,” said another state education department official aware of the plan. “DElEd-2022 training session is set to start from September 14,” said Anil Bhushan Chaturvedi, secretary, ERA, UP.
{{/usCountry}}The DElEd is a two-year diploma programme for candidates aspiring to be a teacher in primary and upper primary schools. At present, DElEd course is offered by around 3,000 private colleges, 67 government-run district institutes of education and training (DIETs) and one College of Teacher Education (CTE) in Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.
A total of 2,16,600 seats of the course are available in the state, including 10,600 seats in DIETs and 2,06,000 in private colleges. Till 2017, the two-year DElEd course was mandatory for aspirants wishing to bag teaching posts in government-run primary and upper primary schools operating under the Basic Education Board of the state.
However, from June 28, 2018, BEd was also introduced as an optional qualification for the posts and this saw most candidates opting for BEd as it gave them eligibility for not just applying for vacancies in government-run primary and upper primary schools but also in secondary schools of the state.