Seven DElEd colleges of west UP bow out of admission race

At a time when the examination regulatory authority, Prayagraj, is busy preparing for starting the process of admissions to the diploma in elementary education (DElEd) course, formerly known as BTC, for the 2022-23 session, seven private DElEd colleges of western UP have voluntarily bowed out of the race of admissions.

“These seven DElEd colleges have requested that no student be admitted against their campuses this time. Taking note, we would be doing the needful,” said a senior official of the exam regulatory authority confirming the development.

Officials concede that these seven colleges had not got a single student last year and their refusal to take admissions in 2022 is being viewed as a step forward towards closing shop.

The DElEd is a two-year diploma programme for candidates aspiring to be a teacher in primary and upper primary schools. The examination and evaluation of the candidates are done in four semesters to prepare them to teach students from classes 1-8.

At present, DElEd course is offered by around 3087 private colleges, 67 government-run district institutes of education and training (DIETs) and one CTE in Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.

The move by the seven colleges of West UP three of Moradabad district having 150 seats for the DElEd course each, one of Mathura having 100 seats and three of Etah including two having 50 seats each and one having 100 seats to not admit students comes amidst waning craze for DElEd course (formerly known as BTC) during past few years.

Till 2017, the two-year DElEd course was mandatory for aspirants wishing to bag teaching positions in government-run primary and upper primary schools operating under the Basic Education Council 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 over DElEd as BEd gave them eligibility of not just for applying for vacancies in government-run primary and upper primary schools but also secondary schools of the state.

Last year 106 private colleges in the state had failed to get a single student for the 2021 session of DElEd, a course which was once seen as a guarantee of a job. Likewise, there were hundreds of colleges that had barely got a dozen students. This was despite the fact that admissions were not done for the 2020-21 session owing to the pandemic.

In 2021 only 96,134 out of the total 2,18,300 seats of DElEd course had got filled. More than half of these seats—around 1,32,766 seats—had got left vacant. Due to the non-filling of even half the seats, the earnings of private DElEd colleges have got severely hit with many preferring to either close down or start running other courses instead of DElEd.