CHENNAI: Cannot remember what you studied for an examination held 10 days ago? Thousands of ‘graduates’ have been asked to retake in May, the exams they prepared for over a decade ago. The degrees and the career they built out of them will become invalid if they fail to write the exams again.
This stems from a judgment of the Supreme Court, which in November last year, said engineering degrees granted through correspondence after 2001 were invalid. The court was hearing a case on the validity of certain technical courses offered by four deemed universities.
A group of affected students has sought time with the Prime Minister and is also looking to file a curative petition in the Supreme Court after their review petition was dismissed recently. Thousands across the country were shocked as the judgment has the potential of making many unqualified for the jobs they are currently engaged in, besides taking away their livelihood and being a blot on their academic credentials.
The involved universities had started their correspondence courses without obtaining the approval from either the University Grants Commission (UGC) or from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), or both. The universities included JRN Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, Institute of Advanced Studies in Education in Rajasthan, Allahabad Agricultural Institute (AAI) and Vinayaka Mission’s Research Foundation in Tamil Nadu.
However, in a sympathetic move, the court added that students who took admissions between 2001 and 2005 in these universities could revive their degrees by undergoing a fresh examination conducted in 2018 by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). Those who graduated after 2005, were offered no such option.
Prashant Sen*, one of the affected, is an expecting father in his mid-thirties and works at a multi-national company in Chennai. Until November 2017, when he heard about the judgment derecognising his degree, he did not know that his course was registered as a distance education course by his university. He enrolled himself in a college affiliated to the AAI in 2004 and was the first engineering student from his family. He stayed in the college hostel and went for every industrial visit the college took him to, did his internship in an MNC and did his weekly practicals while pursuing his undergraduation.
“I have a pregnant wife and parents, who depend on my income. How can I quit my job and prepare for an examination based on the syllabus I studied nearly 15 years ago?” he said. Sen requested anonymity fearing that the company he worked for might fire him, if they knew that his degree stood invalid. “It’s like I am sitting on a time-bomb,” he said.
“We are about 85,000 of us from JRN Vidyapeeth alone and this judgment has wreaked havoc in our lives,” claimed T Vasudevan from Chennai, who did his aeronautical engineering from an affiliated college in Coimbatore. In 2001, after careful analysis, Vasudevan chose a college based on both its reputation and affordability. “Only after completing two years of going to college everyday, we got a notification that our courses were distance education,” he said, adding that he could not change his college owing to financial difficulties. It came as a blow to him when the court said distance education engineering courses were invalid.
Vasudevan, who has diversified into marketing, is sure that he will not be able to clear aeronautical examinations for which he prepared over 15 years ago. “We have to study the entire syllabus taught to aeronautical students over four years, all in a matter of a few months. This is not possible, given that I have a job. My family depends on my income,” he rued.
Government organisations such as HAL, NAL, CPWD and Air India do not accept these students’ job applications since the judgment, claimed K V Rahul, another student from JRN Rajasthan Vidyapeeth. “My classmates had cleared an interview with IndiGo on November 10, 2017. The judgment came around the same time, and the offer was rolled back after certificate verification,” he said. He charged that students are being held accountable for the institute’s fault.
Most of the students whose courses stand invalid are in their thirties with a job and a family and deem it impossible to take up a series of college exams. Less than 8,000 students have enrolled for the exams, sources told Express. *Name changed
Approx number of affected students from JRN Rajasthan Vidyapeeth alone: 85,000
Most are now in their thirties, with a job and a family. It will be difficult to go through exams again