Private schools appoint fresh graduates without B.Ed. degree as teachers

By recruiting fresh graduates without B.Ed. qualification for teaching tasks, private schools in the region seem to be enabling sustenance of self-financed colleges of education.

There have been instances in recent weeks of private school openly issuing advertisements for recruitment of candidates with or without B.Ed. as teachers. By and large, the candidates recruited without B.Ed. qualification in the private schools get simultaneously enrolled in the self-financed colleges of education for completion of the professional degree over a two-year duration. Till then, they are assigned teaching tasks at primary level.

This arrangement perfectly suits the scheme of things in the colleges of education as they are under compulsion to have a critical mass of candidates for sustenance in the wake of the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) making it clear a year back that non-performing B.Ed. colleges will be shut down.

For all practical purposes, the newly-recruited non-B.Ed. teachers in the private schools become students of the colleges of education, and are given the necessary minimum attendance by the institutions to write the exams.

Until they complete the B.Ed. degree, the private schools make sure that their names do not appear on the list of teaching-staff, according to a senior official of the education department. "Though they will be in the payroll, these candidates are projected as administrative staff," the official said.

B.Ed. is an absolute necessity for handling classes from level VI onwards. But, the private school managements do not seem to realise that for appointing teachers at lower levels, a qualification of D.T.Ed (Diploma in Teacher Education) is a pre-requisite, a senior official of the Education Department said.

But the private schools reason out that the end justifies the means. “The performance of vibrant fresh graduates with flair for teaching is far better than those who land in B.Ed. colleges with non-impressive academic records in graduation and post-graduation, “ a functionary of a private school management said

For the purpose of record, the managements assign duties to the teachers appointed with B.Ed. qualification, but in reality tthe classes will be handled by the freshly-recruited graduates. This arrangement does serve the purpose of the fresh graduates as there is a requirement for them, as students of the B.Ed. colleges where they have enrolled, to complete a duration of intensive teaching practice for completion of the course.

Once they complete the course, the private managements formalise their role as teachers.