The Union Education Ministry on Wednesday notified the four-year Integrated Teacher Education Program (ITEP). It is a dual major holistic bachelor’s degree, offering B.A.B.Ed./B.Sc.B.Ed/B.Com.B.Ed. and is launched by NCTE covering one of the major mandates of NEP 2020. The Ministry of Education gave this information on Wednesday, 27th October 2021. According to the statement of the Ministry of Education, "This is one of the major provisions related to teacher education under the National Education Policy 2020."
It states that as per the National Education Policy 2020, from the year 2030, the recruitment of teachers will be through ITEP only. It will be initially offered in a pilot (experimental) format in about 50 selected multidisciplinary institutions across the country.
The ministry explained that the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) has designed this curriculum in such a way that it provides a student-teacher degree in education as well as specific subjects like history, maths, science, arts, economics, or commerce. enables one to obtain a degree in
"The Integrated Teacher Education Program will not only create a framework for modern pedagogy but also provide for Early Child Care and Education (ECCE), Basic Literacy and Numerology (FLN), Inclusive Education and India will serve as a foundation in developing an understanding of values/ethos/arts/traditions and more.”
It added that the program would be available to all students who wish to take up teaching as a profession after secondary education.
"This integrated course will be of great benefit to the students as they will be able to complete it in four years instead of five years required for the present B.Ed course, thereby saving them one year," the ministry said. The four-year ITEP will start from the academic session 2022-23.
According to the statement, admission to this course will be done through the National Common Entrance Test (NCET) by the National Testing Agency (NTA).