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A government panel has recommended converting the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) into a statutory constitutional body and to conduct entrance exams for engineering and management aspirants.
The panel has suggested that that the AICTE should act as a mentor and not as a policeman. Earlier the Human Resource Development Ministry had established a review committee headed by the former education secretary M.K. Kaw in November 2014.
Right now 11,000 professional schools, including engineering and management schools, fall under the purview of the AICTE.
Some of the suggestions the panel has made are
•To do away with licence distributor and bring some radical steps, including removing the affiliation system within a decade,
• Conduct a single engineering entrance exam for all schools under AICTE and a single management test for all business schools.
• AICTE should be recognized as the chief instrument of state policy in order to establish India as the technical education superpower of the world.
•It should be converted into an apex constitutional authority to promote orderly, integrated and coordinated development of technical education.
•The panel had suggested ending the affiliation system of technical schools in the next 10 year.
• It asked the AICTE to improve the functioning of sub-standard institutions with help from “senior faculty drawn from higher technical institutions who will act as mentors and trainers”.
•The panel also recommended to exclude prestigious institutes like Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) from the preview of AICTE
The recommendations hold significance in view of growing suspicion over the AICTE’s role as a regulator and its conflicting role along with the University Grants Commission. A case is also on in the Supreme Court on whether it qualifies as a technical education regulator at all.
