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Unit 8: Statutory Bodies in Teacher Educaion and their Functions—NCTE

of the RTE Act, 2009. Nevertheless, teacher education programmes should enable teacher trainees to Notes
develop sound understanding of the principles laid down under section 29(2), including the system
of continuous and comprehensive evaluation.
Enforcement of Regulations in respect of Norms and Standards for Teacher Education
Programmes : ToR (c)
(a) Review of Norms and Standards: As discussed in the previous section, at present the process of
development and revision of Norms and Standards is characterised by a lack of respect for
objectivity. There is a need to constitute a Standing Committee for periodic revision of the
Norms and Standards for various teacher education programmes. An Academic Cell should
be created in the NCTE which would provide secretarial assistance to the Standing Committee.
A full time consultant or an academic officer of the Council should be Convenor of the
Committee. The Academic Cell should undertake the following responsibilities :
(i) Collection, compilation and analysis of the feedback on the Norms and Standards from
various stakeholders.
(ii) Planning and execution of research/surveys concerning implementation of the existing
norms.
(iii) Making comparative analysis of the Norms prescribed by different affiliating bodies.
(iv) Making comparative analysis of the Norms and Standards in practice in respect of different
teacher education programmes in the select developing and developed countries.
(v) Organization of consultation process with the TEls and affiliating bodies.
(vi) Identifying quality indicators and developing appropriate process-based Norms for the
recognition and monitoring of teacher education programmes.
The Committee may comprise 10-12 members having expertise and special knowledge in different
aspects of teacher education. The Chairman of the Committee should be an outstanding and
experienced educationist in the field of school and teacher education.
The Commission recommends that the NCTE should create a Standing Committee for periodic
revision of Norms and Standards.
(b) Norms and Standards to Realize the Vision of Comprehensive College of Education: In order
to break the isolation within the system of teacher education, it is imperative to move towards
different models of pre-service teacher education. The concept of a comprehensive college of
education which was first recommended by the Education Commission 1964-66 is one such
model. It would be desirable for an institution to offer a minimum of two teacher education
programmes and engage faculty with background in all relevant areas such as psychology,
sociology, philosophy, two languages, various science and social disciplines, visual and
performing arts, physical education, etc. The norms relating to land and building and
instructional facilities should be institution-centric, rather than separately for each course. The
faculty engaged should for the institution as one entity, encouraging integration and cross
learning across programmes. A longest duration integrated, inter-disciplinary programme
located in a college of liberal Arts and Science is another model.
(c) Encouraging Innovations and Innovative Programmes in Teacher Education: As a body
mandated to improve the quality of teacher education, the NCTE must encourage innovations
for the development of alternative models, including pedagogical practices. For the purpose,
the NCTE should lay down general Guidelines for the innovative programmes, including the
parameters of innovation.
Under the existing Guidelines for innovative programmes, while a Committee constituted by
the NCTE Headquarters approves the proposal, recognition is granted by the Regional
Committee on the basis of the norms and standards of an equivalent course specified under
the NCTE Regulations. This approach is inherently flawed since for an innovative programme,
because of its very nature, pre-specified norms and standards of another course cannot be
applied. Instead, the applicant institution should furnish the infrastructural and instructional

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