BEd admissions in Maharashtra: CET Cell to conduct state-level entrance test on June 20

Indian Express

3 days ago

In an important update for aspiring teachers, admission to the four-year BA/BSc-BEd (Integrated) course in Maharashtra will be based on a state-level entrance test to be conducted by the state's Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell on June 20 and not a national-level entrance test.
In March, the state government had announced the discontinuation of the four-year BA/BSc-BEd (Integrated) course starting from the 2025-26 academic year, as it was going to be replaced by the Integrated Teacher Education Program (ITEP), a new four-year teacher training program in line with the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) guidelines. Admission to the ITEP course in Maharashtra was going to be based on a national-level entrance test conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA).
But even as aspirants waited for clarity on NTA's entrance test, a public notice was issued by the Maharashtra CET Cell recently declaring that admission to the BA/BSc-BEd (Integrated) course in the state will be as per the existing practice for this academic year.
The public notice dated May 28 said, 'The NCTE, New Delhi (NCTE) has issued a public notice dated May 5, stating that the four-year B.A./B.Sc-B.Ed (Integrated) course will be discontinued from the academic year 2026-27 instead of 2025-26 and the present course will be converted into a four-year Integrated Teacher Training Course (ITEP) course. As a result, the Department of Higher Education, Mantralaya has directed that a CET and Centralized Admission Process (CAP) should be implemented for the four-year BA/BSc-BEd (Integrated) course only for the academic year 2025-26, by the Maharashtra CET Cell.'
The online registration for the CET will be held between June 2 and June 15. After the announcement of the CET results, a separate schedule will be issued by the Maharashtra CET Cell for the centralised admission process for the four-year BA/BSc-BEd (Integrated) course.
The move comes as a relief for many institutions offering this course. 'Since the announcement, several colleges were confused about the process of conversion from the existing BEd to IETP. Furthermore, there was little time to complete the process before the new academic year starts in June/July. This extension of a year will allow all colleges adequate time to plan ahead,' said the principal of a BEd college in Mumbai.