Self-financed institutes unite to fight 'AICTE bias'

Self-financed technical institutes have launched a front to fight against what they describe as “the AICTE bias” against them, saying the technical education regulator has framed all the rules for them and let off the deemed and private universities which also offer technical courses.

Demanding for a uniform set of regulations for all higher educational institutions offering engineering and other technical programmes in the country, the unaided private colleges on Sunday announced formation of an All India Federation of Technical Institutes (AIFTI) to carry forward their fight. “While there are government committees in states to fix the maximum tuition fee that we can charge from students, there is no such rule for the deemed universities and private universities offering technical programmes,” said Pradeep Kumar, vice president of the newly-formed AIFTI, at a press conference.

The regulations of the All India Council for Technical Institutes (AICTE) require self-financed institutes to have a minimum area of 60,000 square feet to offer just one course, while the deemed universities and private universities can offer any number of courses in just 20,000 square feet area,” V K Verma, chairman of Shri Ram College of Technology, Bhopal, said.

Money power
“If you have money, you can get a degree in a technical programme without attending any classes and taking examination. There are many deemed universities and private universities in the country ready to offer you such a deal if you pay for it. There is no one to monitor their functioning,” the AIFTI vice president said.

More than 8,000 self-financed institutes have been offering technical programmes approved by the AICTE in various disciplines.

Of them, over 4,000 institutes offer undergraduate degree programmes in technical education. A total of 554 self -financed technical colleges are operating in Karnataka while  1,201 such institutes are operating in of Tamil Nadu.

Deemed and private universities offering technical programmes get their approval from the University Grants Commission.

“While deemed universities offering technical courses have to submit some details to the AICTE, the private universities offering technical courses are completely out of the ambit of the university,” AIFTI president R S Munirathinam, who is also the founder-chairperson of the RMK Group of Institutions in Chennai, said.

About 127 deemed universities are operating in the country, besides a total of 176 private universities under the states. While 37 of the total deemed universities are fully run and managed by the government, 11 are government-aided and 79 are fully private deemed universities.

“There is no regulation to fix their intake while the AICTE regulations require us to admit a maximum 180 students per course. We do not want such discrimination. We want one rule for all,” Munirathinam added.