Balwant Garg
Tribune News Service
Faridkot, May 7

To take admission on over 23,000 B.Ed course seats in 214 Colleges of Education in the state, the department of higher education in the state has appointed Punjabi University Patiala as the authority to conduct the Common Entrance Test (CET) for the session 2021-22.

101 of these colleges, affiliated to Punjabi University Patiala, offer about 11,650 B.Ed course seats, followed by 7460 seats in 62 colleges affiliated to Panjab University, and 5,100 seats in 51 colleges attached to Guru Nanak Dev University Amritsar.

While the colleges offering B.Ed. courses in Punjab are already facing a crisis, with over 45 per cent of seats remaining vacant last year, the colleges are contemplating more difficulty this time when there is no certainty about the conducting of CET because of the pandemic.

Not only the private B.Ed colleges, but even five government colleges are also facing a crisis of their over 25 per cent seats remaining vacant last year.

The number of seats has been granted by the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), said VK Meena, secretary, high education.