The Andhra Pradesh School Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commission has ordered the closure of 80 Diploma in Elementary Education (D.Ed) colleges that are allegedly functioning in violation of the norms set by the government.
The commission, headed by Chairman R. Kantha Rao, which met here on Friday, also recommended action against 100 more institutions that were allegedly operating without proper buildings, infrastructure, staff, and students.
Teams, under the supervision of commission vice-chairman Vijaya Sarada Reddy and members V. Narayana Reddy, B. Eswaraiah, D.V.R.K. Prasad and C.A.V. Prasad, scrutinised the documents and educational certificates of the staff and students of the D.Ed colleges. They found several lapses in the functioning of the institutions, the members observed.
The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) had given permission for 860 D.Ed colleges. The State Council for Education, Research and Training (SCERT) had given affiliation for the institutions in the State.
The Regional Joint Directors (RJDs) of the Director of School Education have to conduct periodical inspections and verify the staff, labs, teaching and other facilities in the colleges.
“Each college can admit 50 to 150 students, depending on the facilities. D.Ed qualified candidates will get Secondary Grade Teacher (SGT) certificates, and they can teach from Classes 1 to 8 in the private, aided and government schools,” Prof. Narayana Reddy said.
Notices served
“We served notices on all the 860 colleges and directed them to appear before the commission with relevant documents. However, many institutions failed to produce the documents and other particulars as per government norms,” said Mr. Prasad.
“If there is no quality in teachers and if they pass out with poor knowledge, it will impact the students severely in schools, and the quality of education will come down. The commission has taken the matter seriously,” Mr. Prasad said.
“In the first phase, we verified the documents of about 200 colleges. Scrutiny is being done in the remaining institutions. The commission ordered closure of 80 institutions as they are running without proper amenities, and action has been recommended against 100 more colleges,” Mr. Eswaraiah said.
“The commission will summon the managements of the remaining institutions too. A detailed inquiry will be conducted on the functioning of the D.Ed colleges, as poor teacher education system will impact lakhs of students,” Prof. Narayana Reddy said.
