AICTE announces new norms for 2015-16 Approval Process for Colleges

Mohali, February 1, 2015: All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), New Delhi has announced its much awaited norms for extension of approval to affiliated colleges for 2015-16.

But two major changes have irked the affiliated all across the country. In new norms, no college would be given an increase in seats, if college is not accredited by National Board of Accreditation (NBA).

Education expert Dr.Anshu Kataria, Vice President, Punjab Unaided Technical Institutions Association (PUTIA) said that there are very few colleges across the country those who have accreditation from National Board of Accreditation (NBA) and in Punjab, less than 5% colleges are accredited from NBA.

Manjit Singh, Senior Vice President, PUTIA said that accreditation is the status, which can be applied when two batches are passed out. This means new Engineering Colleges have to wait for 6 years to apply for the new intake. He further added that this would also bring instability in the financial system of the colleges.

Dr. Kataria further said that according to the new norms every college has to buy e-Journals worth Rs. 10-15 Lakh each. If every college buys that e-Journal, then more than 1000 crore rupees will be paid by the colleges in India to the private companies for e-journals. He said spending crore of rupees for e journals are ridiculous. Instead it should be bought by AICTE and should be given access to colleges.

Dr.J.S. Dhaliwal, President, PUTIA said that next week PUTIA delegation would meet AICTE Officials in New Delhi and would request to rollback these two changes done in the approval process of the affiliated colleges.