36 colleges flouted academic norms

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has come out with a list of 36 engineering colleges in Mumbai that have been repeatedly flouting academic and infrastructural norms by submitting false information.

The errant colleges have been visited by inspection committees constituted by the council and have been issued a show cause notice demanding to know why their affiliation and recognition should not be cancelled.

The Citizen Forum for Sanctity in Education (CFSE), an activist group has however said that rather than issuing notices the AICTE should lodge criminal complaints against such colleges that have been exploiting students and fooling the authorities.

Last year, in a similar exercise, the AICTE had inspected 18 colleges and issued show cause notices and initiated de-recognition process against them. However, some colleges went to court and managed to get six months relief to conform to the norms and thus continue its operations. Professor Vaibhav Narwade of CFSE said that the AICTE had been following the same procedure since the past three years but every year the colleges managed to get away scot free.

“Instead of resorting to threats of de-recognition the AICTE should send out a strong message to the college managements that it will not tolerate their misdemeanors by lodging criminal complaints against them,” said Mr Narwade. He also said that CFSE had furnished details of norms flouted by various engineering colleges that was sufficient to initiate criminal proceedings against the errant colleges.

An AICTE official, on the condition of anonymity, said that it had to follow protocol and had initiated committees consisting of an official from the Directorate of Technical Education and a retired judge. “The committees have completed the inspection and have submitted their report, based on which the colleges have been issued show cause notices. If they fail to give satisfactory responses they will face de-recognition,” said the official.