80% seats in Indore's BEd colleges vacant

INDORE: With National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) making the one-year course of two years duration from session 2015-16, Bachelor of Education (BEd) programme, which till last year was high in demand, has lost its sheen.
Nearly 80% seats in BEd colleges of the city remained vacant after first counselling for admissions. A list of vacancy in 520 colleges across state has been uploaded by higher education department on MPOnline’s website.
School of education is worst affected as 92 seats of 100 are vacant. Similarly, around 90% seats are vacant in five colleges of the city. Christian Eminent College emerged as best performer with maximum admission as the college managed to fill 49% seats.
Of 3,200 seats in 31 BEd colleges in city, 2,549 seats are still lying vacant after first counselling. The poor admission scenario has sent ripples through colleges. The colleges held NCTE’s decision accountable for the poor admissions. Sri Nityanand BEd College director Mangesh Mahale blamed department of higher education (DHE) for poor admission scenario. “DHE had not permitted students in final year of undergraduate courses to appear in entrance test for BEd course,” he said. Only 65,000 students had registered for entrance test as compared to 1.44 lakh students last year.