NCTE derecognizes 2,962 teacher education institutions

It will be denied new student admission for the next upcoming academic session 2025-26. But already admitted till 2024-2025 session will be permitted to complete their programme

National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) derecognized 2,962 Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs) of the nation for not uploading Performance Appraisal Reports (PARs) online for the years 2021-22 and 2022-23 after sending show-cause notices in March and April.

The colleges will be debarred from admitting new students for the upcoming year 2025-26. But students who have been admitted up to the academic year 2024-2025 can proceed with the programme.

NCTE, which is responsible for the task of making sure there are norms and standards in teacher education, made it obligatory to submit PAR in September 2019 so that only authenticated institutions can try fulfilling NCTE norms, standards, and guidelines. While submitting PAR, colleges need to submit a list of documents to the council, such as faculty details together with qualification records, institute finance statements, together with geo-tagged documents and photographs.

NCTE had previously made December 30, 2024, the date for PAR receipt, with a double extension. In February 2025, the commission, with member of NCTE's Northern Regional Committee Harish Chandra Singh Rathore as the chairperson, established the five-member expert committee to recommend actions against defaulting institutions. Show-cause notices were sent by NCTE to defaulting institutions for failure to submit PARs for 2021-22 and 2022-23 in March and April 2025. Defaulting institutions were then given notices of withdrawal of recognition by NCTE in April and May 2025 for defaulting in accepting the notices.

"Those colleges have not filed their PARs since they were provided with double the extension and did not respond to show-cause notices. We will take action against additional TEIs as well if we discover that they are breaching our rules and regulations as well. We wish to maintain education standards at TEIs as per provisions under National Education Policy (NEP) 2020," Rathore told HT in an interview.

In light of intimation to defaulting institutions, recognitions to such institutes have been withdrawn with effect from academic year 2025-2026 as per Section 17 of the NCTE Act, 1993. According to Section 17 of NCTE Act, 1993, a regional committee is also authorized to withdraw recognition of a teacher education institution for default against the Act or rules and for course drop out, affiliation cancelled, false qualification to teach, and ban to admit students without recognition.

India's TEIs have been classified into four zones. According to information accessed from NCTE website, the maximum number of derecognised TEIs is in Northern zone at 1,225 (41.36% of the total of 2,962), followed by Southern zone with 960 (32.41%), Western zone with 748 (25.25%), and the minimum in Eastern zone with 29 (0.98%).

Uttar Pradesh dominates the North with 1,059 derecognised TEIs, or 86% of the region total and more than 37% of derecognitions within India. Tamil Nadu (361) and Karnataka (224) dominate South derecognitions. Maharashtra (571 derecognized TEIs) dominates other Western state rivals such as Gujarat and Rajasthan (63 each). West Bengal dominates the East with 18 derecognised TEIs.

Rakesh Mani Tripathi, Principal derecognised Dr Ram Prasanna Maniram Singh Mahavidyalaya, Ayodhya stated: "We have been conducting Bachelor of Education (BEd) since 2002. NCTE is recognising us for the first time for our college. We were unable to fill PAR in time. We are discussing with our teaching staff how we can appeal against the NCTE order.".

Shad Khan, Choudhary Bashir Khan Mahavidyalaya Meerut official also added, "We have been running BEd course since 2016-17 but this year NCTE derecognized our college. The college management committee is searching for the next move to appeal against the NCTE order."

As per NCTE, in case the institution is not content with this order, the institution can prefer an appeal under Section 18 of the NCTE Act, 1993 in online mode on the NCTE website within 60 days from notice. The provision has been made under the section for appeals against the orders of NCTE and it is mentioned that any aggrieved person can prefer an appeal before the council within the given time limit.

"Derecognised TEI persons can send their documents to appeal committee under various regional committees of NCTE. Appeal committee will consider their documents and make a fair judgment," Rathore added.

As per recent available data available on NCTE website, India as nation has 20,454 formally certified TEIs with highest number of them located in Northern Region (8,120 TEIs), followed by Western Region (4,928), Southern Region (4,757), and Eastern Region (2,649).