In a major relief for thousands of Special Basic Teaching Certificate ( BTC) qualified teachers, the jobs of whom were in jeopardy, the Union Human Resource Development ( HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar has said that the issue of Uttarakhand teachers would be brought under the purview of the Bill which is pending in Parliament.The fate of these teachers hangs in balance as after March 2019, they would become ineligible to teach primary students.

The Union Minister assured a delegation of Prathemik Shikshak Sangh ( PSS) in New Delhi on Wednesday that the issue would be  solved.

The Rajya Sabha MP Anil Baluni also accompanied the teachers of the Uttarakhand. After listening the problem faced by more than 18000 government school teachers, the minister directed the National Council of Teacher Education ( NCTE) secretary Sanjay Awasthi to find a way out for these teachers.

The Minister later told the media persons that the teachers of Uttarakhand are qualified and their issue would be incorporated in the Bill which is pending in Rajya Sabha.

The President of PSS, Digvijay Singh said that the association is now hopeful that teachers whose Special BTC qualification was not recognised by the fault of department would now get the relief. 

The issue

There are more than 17000 serving teachers in Uttarakhand who are Special BTC (referred as Vishisht BTC teachers).

These teachers are Bachelor of Education (BEd) qualified but to make them eligible to teach in the primary classes the education department imparted them an in service training of special BTC in different District Institutes of Teachers Training (DIET) from the year 2001 to 2016. After this training these teachers were appointed in the Primary teacher cadre of state education department. To their shock these teachers realised last year that the all important recognition from the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) was not taken by the education department of Uttarakhand for special BTC. After the issue came to fore the department pleaded that NCTE should grant recognition in retrospection. This request was not accepted by apex body of teacher education as according to it granting recognition in retrospection violates the Act by which it is governed. 

As per the new guidelines of the union Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry, only the Diploma in Elementary Education (DElEd) qualified candidates are eligible to teach the primary students. It had made it clear that after March 2019, all primary teachers who don’t have a DElEd degree or BTC certificate would be removed from primary teaching. The BEd qualified candidates who are teaching primary classes were given an option to register for a six months bridge course offered by the NIOS. The teachers however objected to it and most of them did not register for the bridge course.