Crores of students hit by SC ruling

Chennai: The recent Supreme Court verdict that cha­nged the All India Co­uncil for Technical Ed­u­cation’s (AICTE) role from regulator to  a me­re advisor leaves 11,000 engineering colleges and crores of students in uncertainty.

AICTE chairman Prof S.S. Mantha said on the phone from Delhi that the apex court’s judgement had come as a ru­de shock and the Union government’s failure to promulgate an ordina­nce that would restore powers to the AICTE Act had made matters worse.

“We have been regulating engineering colleges and other technical institutions for several decades when the Supreme Court suddenly declares that we cannot do so anymore.

The Union government too has not taken any step to restore our powers. Now, how can we have a uniform standard across the country when there is no regulator?” he said.

The HRD ministry had asked the Univ­er­sity Grants Commi­ssion (UGC) to regulate institutions of technical education until the government came up with a permanent solution.

Sources in the ministry said that the Uni­on government had pla­nned to promulgate an ordinance, but did not.
“As the ordinance plan has been dropped we are pushing the government to amend the AICTE Act and table the Bill in Parliament immediately to end the crisis, but we are not optimistic that it would happen at the earliest as Parliament session is only for two weeks,” the sources said.

Prof H. Devaraj, vice-chairman of the Univ­ers­ity Grants Comm­is­s­ion (UGC), said that the HRD ministry had asked them to regulate technical education, but until a clear picture emerged the Com­mission had constituted a committee to make recommendations on modalities to regulate engineering colleges.

Meanwhile, the HRD ministry has come out with a set of guidelines for technical education which have been posted on to the UGC’s website.

However, academicians and engineering college administrators are a worried lot as the Union government's inaction would make things difficult for students too.