Assembly passes NCTE recruitment norms for teachers

The West Bengal Schools (control and expenditure) (Amendment) Bill, 2016 was passed in the Assembly on Thursday.

It deals with the eligibility criteria of school teachers as per the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) norms.

Primary sections comprise of students from Classes I to IV. However, no mention of students studying in Class V has been mentioned in the NCTE norms, that is, whether they should be treated as primary students or secondary ones have not been mentioned in the NCTE guideline. 

The state government has written a letter to NCTE seeking clarification. The students from Classes VI to VIII will be taught by teachers who are graduates with 50 per cent marks in graduation. 

Students of Classes IX and X will be taught by teachers who are either graduates or post graduates with minimum 50 per cent marks. The teachers with a minimum of 50 per cent marks in post graduation are eligible to teach students of Classes XI and XII. NCTE has enhanced the qualification of teachers to improve the standard of education and quality of teaching. 

However, teachers with additional qualification like PhD will not get any financial benefit. The Bill will help the state government to appoint 72,000 school teachers. There are court cases over no compliance of NCTE norms which will be removed by the bill.

Partha Chatterjee, state education minister said it was really surprising that the Left Front MLAs who had cleared the Control of Expenditure Act in 2005 were now opposing the bill.