BE graduates lose interest in B.Ed. courses

Chennai: The interest for B.Ed course is diminishing among the B.E. graduates as only 40 of the 81 applicants chose their seats on Wednesday.

Following the poor response from BE graduates last year, the state government has reduced seats reserved for them from 20% to 10% this year.

The Tamil Nadu B.Ed. admissions committee has reserved 121 seats for BE graduates in courses like maths, physics, and chemistry. But it has received only 81 applications for these seats which were down by 90% compared to last year.
Last year 150 BE graduates applied for the B.Ed. counselling and 69 students have selected the seats in the counselling.

The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) had relaxed the norms allowing the BE graduates to pursue the two years B.Ed., degree course in 2015. After that, the department of higher education issued guidelines reserving 20% seats for them in courses like Physics and Maths.

“Though the higher education department has given us the reservation, we are not able to get the equivalence certificate for our B.E. degree with other courses like B.Sc. Chemistry or B.Sc. Maths. Due to this, even if we complete our two-year B.Ed. degree we cannot be teachers or eligible to write the Teacher Eligibility Test,” one of the BE graduates said.

Sources in the higher education department said, “B.E. graduates have studied only 20% of the physics, chemistry and maths subjects. Hence, the equivalence committees have refused to give the equivalence certificates.”

“The state government should have solved this problem and then admitted the students. From next year onwards, there will not be any applicants for these seats,” a B.E. graduate said.

Now, the 100-odd students who have joined the B.Ed. courses in the last two years are also facing an uncertain future.