The National Curriculum Revision Committee (NCRC) of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has finalised the curriculum for the discipline of education being taught at public sector universities and institutions.
The curriculum was finalised in a recent NCRC meeting attended by the eminent educationists and experts of the discipline from all over Pakistan.
The NCRC also formulated several recommendations and suggestions regarding the discipline, said a released on Tuesday.
The meeting categorised the teacher education curriculum in the components of core courses of 21 credit hours, foundation courses with 21 credit hours, professional courses with 26 credit hours and specialised courses with 59 credit hours.
The NCRC decided that the four-year B.Ed programme will be an equivalent of the existing Masters degree.
The new nomenclature for the four-year programme would be BS Ed (Hons) for science students and BA Ed (Hons) for Arts students and the new programme will be launched not later than 2008.
The fifth semester will also be entry point for those students who will be following their two year BA/B.Sc and wish to join the B.Ed.
The NCRC recommended that the teachers trained through the four-year B.Ed programme will be able to teach elementary, secondary and higher secondary classes.
Each college and or university conducting the B.Ed programme will have the option of offer a combined programme of two degrees ie Bachelors degree in Arts, Sciences Commerce, IT etc in addition to the B.Ed degree.
The total duration of the short-term internship will be one third of the semester. In the 6th semester, two days may be allocated for research project and short-term internship for the whole semester.