Accreditation of two-third courses must for AICTE nod
CHENNAI: Approval for colleges will be withdrawn if at least two-thirds of their courses do not obtain accreditation in the next four years, said Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairperson of All India Council for Technical Education, on Tuesday.
Speaking at an AICTE stakeholder’s workshop, he said that people working abroad, particularly engineers, faced a huge threat of being sent back to the country as their college courses may not have had accreditation. “About 25,000 engineers from Kuwait were about to be sent back to India as their college courses were not accredited. Some of these engineers are from even reputed institutes. So we had to negotiate,” he said adding that more foreign countries are expecting accreditation.
He said colleges that have accreditation will also be given incentives. He added that the proposed Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) will solve many of these problems as they will have the power to close down institutions that don’t comply with norms.
Commenting on the state of courses such as architecture and planning, pharmaceuticals among others, he said all technical programmes in the country – distance education, online courses and education through State and private universities- will explicitly come under the purview of AICTE alone. “They will not have to meet norms set by multiple regulatory bodies soon,” he said. It is mandatory for colleges to display their accreditation status prominently on the website, he emphasised.