Madras High Court admonishes AICTE for treating good and bad colleges alike

In an important order, the Madras High Court ticked off All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for keeping well-functioning and ill-equipped educational institutions at the same level.

Till now, the central regulatory body for technical education in the country treats every college comes under its wing alike which results in the harassment of those achieving excellence in offering quality technical education.

Passing orders on a writ petition filed by Shanmuga Polytechnic College, an associate of Thanjavur-based Sastra University, Justice K K Sasidharan said, "There is no dispute that there are ill-equipped institutions offering various courses in engineering. Those institutions are still surviving with the help of authorities. All institutions should not be painted with the very same brush. An apex body like the AICTE must be in a position to identify premier institutions and encourage them to give good technical education for an affordable fee. Similarly, efforts should be made to close down makeshift engineering institutions which are a source of threat in the field of education."

Background

The college filed the writ petition against AICTE after it refused to give its nod to an electronics engineering course that college offers. The AICTE refused approval by saying there were three major deficiencies in the course structure such as the information regarding fees, reservation and admission policy are not uploaded on the institute's website; the institute's land was not contiguous; and salaries are not paid as per AICTE norms.

Then the institute protested saying no parent or student or state authority had ever raised their fingers against the institute in its 29 year of existence. For the objections about the nature of the land, the institute asserted that it was a new reason invented by the AICTE, and this reason is completely extraneous. It further said that the salary issue was pending before the Supreme Court.