New regulations for Technical institutes: UGC recognition overrides AICTE approval

Students will no longer need to approach the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for lodging any complaint from the upcoming academic season. Universities will soon be empowered to address issues. So that students can simply reach out to the university that their institute is affiliated to.

With the Supreme Court’s intervention in AICTE’s power to regulate technical institutes in India, new changes are being adapted to empower more universities. According to sources, the government is planning to implement new rules that will give more authority to universities to act as independent bodies that can redress problems of more than 10,000 institutes and colleges. However, the concerned institutes must be affiliated to UGC-recognised universities.

The concerned university will be able to decide its courses, student intake, review curriculum and even prescribe fees.

“We will shift from government regulation to self-regulation, wherein the institutions would have to declare in a public domain as to what they are offering,” a senior government official told Hindustan Times. With the new rules becoming operational from the next academic year (2014-15), technical institutions will only have to get their infrastructure revalidated once in three years.

The Ministry of Human Resource Department also plans to provide central funds to well-performing private technical institutes through the universities in an effort to create centres of excellence in the private sector.