Saturday, July 15, 2006

AICTE cannot take direct action against deemed varsities

In what can only be termed as a victory of sorts to the erring Deemed Universitites, Chennai High Court has ruled that AICTE cannot act directly against the erring DUs, but can only bring the errors to the notice of UGC.

The Hindu News

AICTE cannot also inspect the DU's premises on its own. It needs to include a representative from the UGC.

If this is what the Court thinks, why do we need AICTE? It can as well be disbanded and the money allocated to UGC to build its own expertise to inspect and regulate the Deemed Universities and Engineering Colleges.

Actually, the problems lies with the Central Government. They should regularise the roles of AICTE, UGC, MCI and so on through proper unambiguous legislation. The executives are once again relagating their powers and allowing the judiciary to control various aspects of the administration.

2 comments:

  1. Badri, I think the court is right in saying so. It is UGC, which decides whether an instituition deems fit to be an university or not. A simple google search tells us that, the rules for an instituition to become a deemed university, are fairly simple and the money involved is quite manageble.

    After giving the DU status, UGC should have established a system to monitor those DUs.I'm not sure if any such system is in place.

    AICTE's role is restricted to technical education and has a say only in engg colleges that comes under its purview.

    Hence, the blame is entierly on UGC and not on AICTE, IMO

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  2. Prakash, unfortunately in case of most DUs, they are nothing but Engineering Colleges. In other words, Engineering Colleges acquired DU status solely in order to hoodwink AICTE and they have now been successful.

    To say that Engineering Colleges that have simply acquired DU status go out of the purview of AICTE and somehow the UGC has the capability to handle the erring DUs is not entirely acceptable.

    The court verdict seems to indicate that AICTE must act as a policeman finding out the problems with DUs and UGC will have to act on it to punish/correct DUs.

    This is unlikely to be very effective.

    UGC must be careful in handing out DU status to mere Engineering Colleges.

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