The All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has made it clear that approval for the programmes being offered by nine technical institutes with foreign collaboration in Karnataka would start from the 2007-08 academic session and would not have any retrospective effect. 

“The issue of giving approval to several programmes run by these institutes with foreign collaboration, are still pending with the AICTE. If these institutes are found fit for approval, it would be given from the 2007-08 session,” official sources told Deccan Herald.

These institutes are — M S Ramaiah School of Advanced Studies, TASMAC Training and Advanced Studies in Management and Education, MP Pillai Institute of Management, Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, Institute of Finance and International Management, UTL Technologies Ltd, Global Academy of Technology, Dayanand Sagar College of Science, Arts and Commerce and Christ College in Bangalore and Jagadguru Shri Shivarathreeshwara Colleges of Pharmacy in Mysore.

“Though many of these institutes have been running the programmes for several years now and they have admitted students and taken fees from them, the programmes will not be approved with retrospective effect and thus the earlier batches will not get the benefit,” sources said.

Since joining unapproved programmes could have serious consequences in terms of eligibility for employment and higher studies, students of the earlier batches could even claim full refund of their fees on the ground of breach of trust on the part of the institute, which had misled them with incorrect information.

In clear violation of the AICTE Act of 1987, which says that approval is mandatory for any institution offering programmes in engineering and technology, management, computer applications, pharmacy and hotel management, several institutions has admitted students and collected hefty fees from them by showing foreign collaboration, even though their programmes have not been approved by the AICTE.  “And this happened in spite of the fact that strong punitive actions were announced as part of All India Council for Technical Education Notification as early as May 16, 2005,” sources said.

The Council released a list of institutions running technical programmes with foreign collaboration without its approval. It included M S Ramaiah School of Advanced Studies, Bangalore for running MSC (Engg) in various disciplines and manufacturing management course in collaboration with the Coventry University, UK.

Also in the list was TASMAC Training and Advanced Studies in Management and Education, Bangalore, which is running BA (Hons) in Business Administration, MBA, MSc in Information Technology and MBA (full time-one year) in collaboration with the University of Wales, UK and MP Pillai Institute of Management, Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, Bangalore, which is running MBA in collaboration with Marshal University, USA.

However, these three institutes were given a one-time hearing on July 19 and the AICTE inspection team would be visiting them this month to check their infrastructure, faculty, library and other facilities on the spot.

The other institutes from Karnataka included Institute of Finance and International Management, (MBA with Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand), JSS Colleges of Pharmacy (Bridging programme with University of South Australia, Australia), UTL Technologies Ltd (ME in Telecommunication Engineering with Multimedia University, Malaysia), Global Academy of Technology (BE in Computer Science with The University of Adelaide, Australia), Dayanand Sagar College of Science, Arts and Commerce (MBA with University of Dallas, USA) and Christ College (MBA with Ohio University, USA). AICTE inspection team would visit all these institutes except the JSS College as they were offering only a training programme and did not lead to conferring of any degree or diploma.

Expressing concern about the mushrooming of institutes providing technical education with foreign collaboration, the official said many of the foreign institutes were not recognised in their own country and could not produce accredition certificates for the programmes which they run in this country in collaboration with their Indian partners.