NCED was established in 1993 under the Ministry of Education (MOE), as an apex body for human resource development. Since then, the centre is undertaking activities related to teacher development,capacity development of educational personnel under the Ministry of Education and conduction of research activities in education. In the past, the training programmes were conducted by different institutions/organizations and it was difficulty in coordination and avoiding duplications. As a result, it was realized that the integrated and coordinated approach and efforts could be more realistic, effective and efficient. Therefore, previous Distance Education Centre and Secondary Education Development Centre were merged with NCED in 2004 to form a greater NCED which deals with all aspects and levels of teacher training, and management and professional trainings. The Council for Educational Human Resource Development, headed by the Minister of Education, provides policy guidelines to NCED. It has four major programme components.