Our college has passed several milestones before it attained present stature as College of Teacher Education . On 1st of September 1862, (Late )Captain Edward Brennen, a master attendant of Tellicherry port gave birth to an educational institution in Tellicherry town to give the boys of all castes , creeds, and colour a sound English education” and he left an endowment of
Rs. 8900 for opening the free school. In 1866 ,this institution was upgraded and amalgamated with Basal Germen Mission Brennen English School ( B.G.M. Brennen English School). Within two years i.e. In 1868, the school was again upgraded to a high school. However in 1872, the institution was taken over by the then Government .The decision was taken by the Governor of madras as the basal mission was not able to manage the institution . Till 1883 it was a district school under the management of government . In 1884, the school was transferred to Tellicherry municipality on the basis of the government policy.

      During the year 1890, this full fledged high school was converted to a second grade college known as “ Government Brennen College Tellicherry” . The college has functioned in this building for a long period . When the Brennen College was shifted to the present campus at Dharmadham in 1957, Government Training College was established in its’ place at Tellicherry. Since June 1958, the Training College is housed in this old Government Brennen College buildings. The training college was formally inaugurated by Dr. B. Ramakrishna Rao , the then Governor of Kerala on 13th September 1957. This institution is situated in 1.52 acres of its’ own land since June 1958.
      The Government Brennen Higher Secondary School, the institution which is situated in the college premises is the old model high school . A high school , known as model school was attached with every training college during that period. So this school was upgraded and shifted from chirakkara to this college premises for the smooth functioning of the training college. Later it was again upgraded and renamed as Government Brennen Higher Secondary school.
The Government Training college , Thalassery was upgraded and renamed as Government College of Teacher Education under the central government scheme sponsored by Ministry of Human Resources and Development as per order No : G.O. (Rt) 1788/94 / H.Edn. dated 29 – 11 – 1994 , with manifold purpose in the field of education .This institution has now developed to the level of national centre for giving in – service training to secondary school teachers of Kannur ,and Kasaragod districts and to improve the quality of teachers through an ongoing process of intensive training programmes every year.
The college was affiliated to the University of Kerala at the time of the establishment in 1957.Later it was affiliated to the University of Calicut due to the formation of the new university in 1963. When the University of Kannur was established in 1996, this institution also was affiliated to the Kannur University.
The college is conducting B.Ed. course and offers instruction in the following optional subjects
i) Mathematics ii) Social science iii) English iv)Malayalam v) Physical Science vi) Natural Science
vii) Hindi viii) Arabic