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Distance edu : AICTE permits only MBA, MCA
NEW DELHI : The All India Council for Technical
Education (AICTE) has tightened the norms on offering
technical education courses through a distance education
mode.
In a circular sent to the state governments last week,
the AICTE said that only MBA and MCA courses will be
considered for recognition in the distance education
mode if the respective institutes have the joint
approval from the Distance Education Council (DEC),
University Grants Commission (UGC) and the AICTE.
The AICTE has barred institutes from offering BE, B.Tech,
Architecture, Town planning, Pharmacy, Hotel Management
and Catering Technology, Applied Arts and Craft and
post-graduate diploma in management courses through
distance education mode.
“It is an AICTE policy not to recognise the
qualifications acquired through distance mode at
diploma, bachelor’s and master’s level in these fields.
It now has a policy to consider only MBA and MCA through
distance mode,” the circular notes.
The AICTE alerted students pursuing or aspiring to
pursue technical education courses through distance
education mode to check the approval by the joint
committee of DEC, UGC and AICTE and made it clear that
the MBA and MCA degrees acquired through the distance
education mode without these approvals will not be
considered for employment by the Centre and state
governments.
Currently, several state universities including the
Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University-Hyderabad, are
offering engineering courses through distance mode by
setting up study centres in various districts.
CBI
finds massive holes in AICTE working
By
Rajiv Shukla
The
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has found major flaws in
the AICTE working and discovered numerous instances of
blatant favours shown to select institutions.
Highly
placed CBI sources told this writer that the CBI bosses
recently wrote a detailed letter to the Ministry of Human
Resource Development enumerating various instances of AICTE
favours to some institutions and have suggested ways to plug the holes in AICTE working.
The
CBI action follows the arrest of AICTE Member-Secretary
K
Narayan Rao on July 16, followed by CBI raids at the
residence of the AICTE chief R A Yadav and many other
officials of the AICTE, including H C Rai (Advisor),
Ravindra Randhawa, Om Dalal, S P Singh, D S Bagri and
Sanjay Sharma (all regional officers).
The CBI has so far
received 50 online complaints from stake-holders who
responded to CBI website (www.cbi.gov.in)
call to click on the stipulated link, the source said.
According to the source
the CBI raided a number of institutions following
investigations and found that the joint fixed deposit
receipts have been enchased by some institutions and
loan taken against those deposits without approval of
the AICTE.
In some cases false report
were made by the expert committee to favour some
institutions, or in some cases actual report of expert
committee was ignored to grant approval.
Some groups of
institutions had obtained approval for their new college
by showing the building/infrastructure of colleges
approved earlier, while in some cases the land available
and the total built-up area of colleges was less than
the laid down norms.
The source said that many
colleges were found to have an acute shortage of faculty
and defined infrastructure.
Suggestions
The CBI has written to the
MHRD that the AICTE should reform its working and
encourage online submission of applications and provide
online update on processing and scrutiny of
application. Objections, if any should be communicated
to the applicant online and the applicant should be able
to track the progress of his application online.
All the details made
available by any institute electronically should be
accessible to public for greater transparency.
Change of faculty by any
institute should be communicated to AICTE immediately
and the details should be available on the website of
the institute and the AICTE.
A panel of experts of
government colleges should be prepared and composition
of expert visiting committee should be made random. Once
finalised, the team composition should not be changed
without prior approval of the senior functionaries of
the AICTE and that too only in compelling circumstances.
The expert visiting
committee should stay at the concerned institution for
some fixed period, say 2 or 3 days to do a through
inspection.
Manpower available with
the AICTE should be increased to cater to large number
of inspections in short period of time.
The source said that the
CBI is still investigating a number of complaints and it
would take some time before the AICTE rigmarole if
finally exposed.
AICTE
changes accreditation rules and procedure
By Sanjiv Dube
NEW DELHI : The All India Council for Technical
Education here is changing its accreditation norms and
procedure from January 1, 2009 to make them compatible
with international standards. The
revised norms and
procedures will apply to proposals received on and after
January 1, according to a AICTE notification.
The changes have been necessitated by the Washington
Accord which requires its signatory countries to follow
uniform international benchmarks in technical education
at undergraduate level. India, a provisional member of
the Accord aspires to become a full-fledged member and
hence needs to change its accreditation norms and
procedures to make them compatible with global standard.
According to the
revised norms and procedures introduced
by the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) of the AICTE, the NBA inspection team would now check the
overall placement success of the institute and
satisfaction and comfort level of students. They will
take into consideration the enrolment status, admission
norms for the students and if the institute is able to
fill up all or nearly all the seats for the programmes
which it runs.
Facilities for career guidance and arrangement to assist
students suffering from psychological disorders are also
now part of the accreditation procedure. The team will visit the training and placement facilities of the
institute and confirm that there is a full time officer
or a faculty who devotes adequate time for overseeing
this facility.
Up to now the NBA used to take into account among other
things, the faculty, physical infrastructure, number of
computers and books available in the institute providing technical education. A three-day visit to an
institute by a NBA team of experts in relevant fields
used to assess the applicant institute on a 1,000-point
scale. For a three-year accreditation the score was to be 650
or more and for a five-year one the minimum score
expected was 750.
As against this, the Washington Accord countries
insisted on qualitative parameters focusing on the
actual performance of the students in industries and
research organisations.
The Washington Accord is an international accreditation
agreement for professional engineering degrees, between
the bodies responsible for accreditation in its
signatory countries. Established in 1989, the
signatories are Australia, Canada, the Republic of
Ireland, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South
Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the
United States.
Germany, India, Malaysia, Russia and Sri Lanka were
inducted as provisional members of the Accord in 2007
and they have to live up to the international standards
to qualify for full-status membership of the Accord.
In case India qualifies for full membership in 2009, the
engineering degrees conferred upon by the Indian
institutes would be considered at par with those from
the developed nations and Indian students would not have to
sit for a separate examination or enroll for training
courses for getting jobs or practicing licenses in those
countries.
http://www.aicte.ernet.in |
