At a time when dearth of trained teachers is plaguing the education system, the HRD Ministry is discreetly planning to wind up the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), the apex body for teacher education in the country.
The ministry has apparently not stated any reason for the winding up of the statutory body, which was brought into existence by an act of Parliament in 1995, and not even intimated the council officially about its decision.
Accordingly, the fate of 121 employees of the council, including those in the regional units in Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar and Jaipur, is uncertain.
As there was no response from the ministry on letters from the NCTE member secretary for information on the matter, a group of aggrieved employees have applied under the RTI for getting access to a cabinet note, which had already been circulated to the Planning Commission, ministries of Law and Finance, on the decision to wind up the body.
If the government wants to go ahead with its decision to dissolve the body, it has to bring a bill in Parliament for repealing the NCTE Act.
Referring to the Review Committee, which was set up under the chairmanship of Sudip Banerjee, Adviser (Higher Education) to assess whether the NCTE had fulfiled its mandate, the ministry stated that the committee had recommended that the NCTE Act, 1993, should be repealed and all regulatory functions relating to teacher education and such institutions should be transferred to the Central and state universities.

Dereliction of duty
The committee found that not only had the NCTE been derelict of its duties, the apex teacher education body had promoted commercialisation and unplanned proliferation of teacher education institutes. In 2006, the number of NCTE recognised institutions were 6,868. But in the first six months of the current year, the number has risen to 7,288 showing that teacher training institutes had mushroomed across the country. There were also allegations of malpractice in the approval process. 
There were regional variations as teacher training institutes came up in large numbers in states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, even though these were not in demand.
In states like Orissa, Bihar and Jharkhand, the sanction was much lower though the requirement of teachers was greater.
But according to the council, the ministry had never informed it about the report of the Review Committee, nor did it ask for any clarification.
“We have not been informed about the complaints against us, nor have we received a copy of the report, which reportedly has revealed malpractices in the council,” a senior NCTE official said.
“The ministry should have asked for our explanation and can remove the officials who, it feels, are corrupt. How can a statutory body be dissolved in such an arbitrary manner?” he added.
The government could not bypass Section 30 of the NCTE Act, which states: “If the Central government is of the opinion that the council is unable to perform, or has persistently made default in the performance of the duties imposed on it by or under the act or has exceeded or abused its power, or has willfully or without sufficient cause failed to comply with any directions issued by the Centre, under section 29, the Central government by notification in the Official Gazette, supersede the council for such period as may be specified in the notification.”