In a major policy reversal, the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) is set to restore one-year B.Ed and M.Ed programmes, nearly a decade after doubling their duration to two years. The change, part of new draft regulations, will take effect from 2026-27, once again offering shorter routes to teaching careers for eligible candidates.

The draft regulations 2025 were approved at a recent general body meeting of the NCTE and will be made public soon to seek feedback.

B.Ed and M.Ed programmes, which ran for one year for decades, were extended to two years under NCTE the NCTE (Recognition Norms and Procedure) Regulations in 2014. In response to a question in Parliament in 2015, then Minister for Human Resource Development Smriti Irani had said that the B.Ed syllabus was revised under the 2014 regulations with new modules including yoga education and gender studies, and 20 weeks of internship was introduced. “With a view to improve its quality, the duration of the B.Ed. programme has been enhanced to make it a more professionalized and rigorous teacher education programme,” the response in Parliament stated.

These regulations, setting norms for teacher education, haven’t been revised since.

However, the revival of the one year B.Ed and M.Ed programmes doesn’t mean the two-year ones are being scrapped. The one-year M.Ed programme will be full-time, while a two-year part-time course will be offered to those who are working, like teachers and education administrators, said Pankaj Arora, Chairman, NCTE.

As per the draft regulations, for the one-year B.Ed programme, only those who have completed a four-year graduation degree or a postgraduate programme will be eligible. Arora said that it will not be available to those who have completed a three-year graduation programme, and for such students, the two-year B.Ed programme will continue.

“The two-year M.Ed programme, which began in 2015, has not helped in promoting teacher education or the discipline of teaching among young learners. In many institutions, seats were going vacant and the curriculum was not improved in the way that it should have been. In addition to a research component, the M.Ed course will have a field-work component and a community engagement component,” Arora said.

“The one-year B.Ed and M.Ed courses were the main programs of teacher education till 2014. This is a revival of these programmes in the light of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. With the NEP, the University Grants Commission (UGC) came out with the National Higher Education Qualifications Framework. In this, at level 6.5, there can be a one-year Masters degree. Our students will be at level 6.5 after a four-year ITEP (Integrated Teacher Education Programme) or four years of a bachelor’s degree and one year of B.Ed,” Arora said.

ITEP, a four-year programme (BA B.Ed/ B.Sc B.Ed/ B.Com B.Ed), was launched in pilot mode in 57 institutions from the 2023-24 academic session onwards. It is available to students who have completed class 12. From the 2025-26 session onwards, ITEP will no longer be in pilot mode and will be a regular programme of teacher education, meaning that institutions can seek recognition to offer the course from this year onwards, Arora said. Four specialised ITEP programmes – ITEP Yoga, Physical Education, Sanskrit Education, and Art Education – will also be offered from the 2025-26 session onwards, he said.

The 2014 regulations had provided for the four-year BA/B.Sc B.Ed, which has now transitioned into ITEP. They had also provided for a three-year integrated B.Ed- M.Ed programme, and on this the NCTE is yet to take a decision. “We will decide about the rest of the programmes later,” Arora said.

“After class 12, if somebody decides they want to be a school teacher, there’s ITEP. If they decide after three years of graduation, then there is the option of a two-year B.Ed. After post graduation or a four-year graduation course, a one-year B.Ed is being offered. These three programmes are for different populations altogether…anybody, at any stage, who is willing to come into teaching, should be given an appropriate programme. These programmes will also have four specialisations as per the new school education structure under the NEP – foundational, preparatory, middle and secondary school levels,” he said.