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Ban on distance B.Tech, M.Tech engineering lifted
ABP Live | Basant Kumar Mohanty | Thursday, 24 September 2015 |
New Delhi: The Centre has lifted its six-year-old ban on B.Tech and M.Tech in distance mode but said institutions will require the approval of regulators to start such courses. A gazette notification by the human resource development (HRD) ministry said all degrees, diplomas and certificates – including those in technical education – awarded through open and distance mode , stood automatically recognised for employment to central jobs, provided the courses have been approved by the University Grants Commission (UGC). But there is no relief for those already holding such degrees, which continue to remain invalid. The UGC has a distance education bureau (DEB) to approve such programmes. The bureau, advised by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), has been giving approval to two such technical courses – MCA and MBA – in distance mode.
The bureau – known as the Distance Education Council (DEC) before 2012 – has stopped approving courses like B.Tech and M.Tech since 2009 after the ministry put a ban on them on the ground that their quality was compromised. “The ministry has lifted its ban. Now it is up to the regulators like the UGC and the AICTE to take call on whether to allow universities to start these courses,” said a ministry official. The AICTE , which regulates technical education, has always followed a policy of not approving B.Tech, M.Tech, pharmacy, hotel management, and architecture courses in distance mode. Lawyer Ravi Bhardwaj said the latest notification was a “positive departure”. “The government has taken the first step for recognition of such B.Tech and M.Tech degrees in government jobs with prospective effect. I think this decision will prompt the regulators to start approving technical education courses in correspondence mode.”
However, the notification does little to help the thousands already holding such degrees and facing discrimination in jobs. While inviting applications for posts like those of junior engineers, most state and central agencies do not accept B.Tech completed in distance mode. Many such degree-holders are languishing at junior levels in the railways and other Centre-run units like the Steel Authority of India (SAIL) as these organisations do not consider their B.Tech valid. “I have been working in SAIL for the past 10 years. My B.Tech degree is not being entered into my service record and I am not getting promotions,” said one official. Thousands more – many from varsities like Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University – have been running from pillar to post in the hope of getting their qualifications recognised. But lawyer Bhardwaj said the notification could not be implemented retrospectively, hence the earlier degree holders would not get the benefits unless the government and regulators took a specific decision to this effect. Sources in the ministry said the AICTE had been recently asked to look into the issue of recognition of such previously issued degrees. An IGNOU official said many open universities were running B.Tech and M.Tech courses in distance mode, after approvals from their academic councils. The regulatory bodies had not clamped any restrictions on them till 2009. “Before I took admission for B.Tech in IGNOU in 2008-09, I had checked with the AICTE and the UGC. They had no problems with B.Tech in distance mode. Then they arbitrarily put the restriction and pushed our career into jeopardy,” the SAIL employee said. – Courtesy
UGC move to designate ASCs as Human Resource Development Centres upsets teachers
The Hindu | NEW DELHI, August 15, 2015 | |
The move impacts career profiles of professors, readers and lecturers.
What’s in a designation? Well everything, if you are a teacher, teaching teachers. Till January 20, 2015, the nomenclature Professor, Reader and Lecturer was used for teachers at the 66 Academic Staff Colleges (ASCs) funded by the University Grants Commission. Then the nomenclature changed with an announcement on the UGC website this year. ASCs were designated as Human Resource Development Centres and the staff re-designated as Director, Deputy Director (Physical Education) and Assistant Director (Physical Education). The non-academic designations impact the career profiles of over 100 professors, readers and lecturers working in the Academic Staff Colleges (ASCs) and raise the spectre of agenda-driven curriculum in campuses.
“What is the connect between physical education and academics, unless the Government wants to run institutions to the ground,” asks a professor who spoke on condition of anonymity. These colleges were started more than 20 years ago, and function as autonomous units within universities with the objective of teaching teachers to fine-tune their skills at the university/college level. Often, the teaching colleges have been set up to score a political point. For instance, if the former HRD Minister from the UPA, Pallam Raju, announced the setting up of a college in Kakinada, his constituency, Varanasi, which happens to be the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too boasts of one such centre in the Benaras Hindu University.
Yoga adds to confusion
The inclusion of physical education in their new designations has taken the academic staff by surprise as “it makes little sense.” Physical education is normally correlated with sports and physical activities. Adding to the confusion, was the introduction of yoga this summer by the Director of the Staff College located in the campus of the Jawaharlal Nehru University. Making a connect between redesignation and physical education and yoga, many teachers asserted on condition of anonymity, that this was an attempt to introduce subjects and disciplines as desired by the new dispensation. In the absence of clarity, Jayanti Roy, Deputy Director in the Staff College in Punjab University, says “my job profile remains the same. Then, why the redesignation. It makes no sense.” There was no response to repeated requests for clarification from the UGC. The UGC announcement has sparked a huge unrest among teachers in the staff colleges who fear their careers are at stake. The staff of the UGC-ASC, for the last 20 years, have been appointed as Readers and Lecturers and promoted accordingly. Ms. Roy adds: “There is no logical reason for designation change. Since the job profile of the lecturers, readers, professors appointed in the Human Resource Development Centres (HRDCs) formerly known as Academic Staff Colleges (ASCs) has not changed, the basis of the decision to change the designation is totally unfathomable. This was not clarified by the UGC even in its response to an RTI application.”
Academic work
As per the UGC direction, the staff colleges are teaching units where teachers are trained by their seniors or contemporaries to fine-tune their teaching skills. Much of it is academic work that involves planning and designing, teaching, research, evaluation, monitoring and execution of academic training programmes — without which faculty development cannot take place. Only teachers can teach/mentor teachers and therefore the designations of these posts, many teachers insist, should remain academic only. The website proclaims the objective of ASC as mainly for the upgradation of knowledge and skills of college and university teachers. It declares: “drawing upon the faculty of JNU as well as other prestigious institutions in and around Delhi, the HRDC, and JNU brings to its participants the cream of Indian scholarship.” – Courtesy
Kerala’s First IIT Starts Functioning at Palakkad: ( IIT-Palakkad, IIT-P )
ND TV | South | Press Trust India | August 03, 2015 |
Palakkad, Kerela: Scripting a new chapter in the higher education sector in Kerala, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) started functioning from a temporary campus here today. The IIT-Palakkad campus was opened at a function here with Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani addressing the students through video conferencing. The official opening ceremony of the campus would be held later this month, official sources said. In her address, Irani urged students to ensure that society benefits from their activities in the campus.
IIT-Palakkad offers four B-Tech streams – Computer Science and Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering – in the initial phase. As many as 117 students, mostly from Uttar Pradesh, have been admitted to the new campus. Classes began in a temporary campus near Valayar here and it would be shifted to a 500-acre permanent campus in Puthussery in the district in three years, after completion of land acquisition process and construction of buildings, the sources said.
Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan was among the dignitaries who attended the opening function.- Courtesy
National Higher Education Authority should have powers to derecognise insititutes: HRD panel
The Economic Times | By PTI | 22 Apr, 2015 |
AICTE regional Office at Thiruvananthapuram: Shashi Tharoor MP Writes to HRD Minister
The New Indian Express | By Express News Service | 18th March 2015 |
HRD Minister Smriti Irani releases her 200-day report card; 200 Days : New Vision, New Approach
DNA Analysis | Monday, 9 February 2015 Place: Mumbai | Kanchan Srivastava |
The report card titled ‘200 Days: New vision new approach’ was released by the Irani-led ministry of human resources and development (MHRD) on Monday and uploaded on the ministry website. The 126-page e-booklet highlights the initiatives taken by the ministry under Irani in a graphical format. No other minister in the Union cabinet, including prime minister Modi, has released any such self-assessment report yet after completion of 200 days in December. The MHRD booklet lists 35-plus initiatives along with the “challenges and solutions” in date-wise manner. This ranges from “democratic process initiated for new national education policy,” review of regulators such as AICTE/UGC, announcement of 19 new institutions, measures for quality education, international collaborations, scholarships for disables students, Ishan Vikas scheme to integrate north east students, choice-based credit system etc. Courtesy
Click here to view / download Progress Report : 200 Days : New Vision, New Approach (e-View)
Unnat Bharat Abhiyaan (UBA); Higher Education to Help Grow Rural India through Technology
Jagaron Ghosh | 27-JAN-2015 |
The Government of India has recently launched a programme named ‘Unnat Bharat Abhiyaan’ (UBA), under which the higher education institutions would be encouraged to take part in solving problems related to rural India like sanitation and hygiene, water, health and education through the help of technology. This can transform the scenario of the rural India and if the technologies are ‘relevant, robust and affordable’, considerable change could get registered. The Unnat Bharat Abhiyaan was launched on 11 November 2014 on National Education Day, which was done to mark the birth anniversary of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who was the first education minister of India. Under the UBA programme there are 18 institutions that are currently roped in. These institutes include IITs of Bombay, Delhi, Gandhinagar, Bhubaneswar, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Jodhpur, Kanpur, Madras, Kharagpur, Mandi, Patna, Roorkee and Ropar, BHU Varanasi and also Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal and Malviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur. If UBA’s is believed, almost 70 percent of India’s population still lives in rural areas, who are associated with mainly agrarian economy. The workforce associated with agriculture is almost 51% but it accounts to only 17% of the GDP. Under the programme each institute would adopt certain villages where they would work. IIT Delhi has adopted 32 villages across Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Likewise, IIT Bombay has adopted 27 villages and IIT Madras 11 villages till now.
The Unnat Bharat Abhiyaan Cell ( UBAC) IIT Delhi co-coordinator S.K. Saha said that the main aim is to take already developed solutions to the rural people and how to create links with them so that problems faced by them can be taken up by the IIT community as their academic problems or otherwise. The villages were selected based on earlier interactions with some of the faculty members of IIT Delhi. It is emphasized here that the technical solutions whenever available with any IIT will be taken to a village or a cluster of villages that have similar requirements or demands. The whole programme could turn out to be very useful on grounds that it would include linking of knowledge to the field, and technology development could get linked to help small technical problems of rural artisans. It could help rural people in the field of education, health, irrigation and agricultural innovations alike. According to HRD Minister Smriti Irani, “Unnat Bharat Abhiyaan will connect our institutions of higher education to develop technical solutions to address challenges in rural India.” Courtesy Visit Unnat Bharat Abhiyaan (UBA) website
‘Indian Higher education destroyed by academics, politicians’; Dr. Devesh Kapur, CASI Director
The Hindu | NEW DELHI, December 19, 2014 | |
The trajectory of the Narendra Modi government’s education policy has been “disappointing and makes one apprehensive,” said Dr. Devesh Kapur, Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania. According to Dr. Kapur, Mr. Modi’s attempts to engage the Indian diaspora in the country’s development may be possible in private sector, but would be highly difficult in public universities, unless the structure of higher education changes radically. “Suppose the Vice-Chancellor of a university said, ‘I am creating a special place for Indian academicians abroad.’ Do you think it is possible? It is not possible, as others in the university would be up in arms. Higher education has been destroyed by Indian academicians as much as by Indian politicians. So in higher education, diaspora’s role is difficult.”
Dr. Kapur said unless India grows at a reasonable pace, the new middle class of India could become a source of reactionary politics. “There are times when they are agents of progressive social change and times when they are reactionary. In Germany and Italy it was the middle class that supported the fascists. When there are times of insecurity, they are precarious. The lower middle class is always insecure about slipping back into poverty.” Courtesy
Centre for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania
UGC to universities: Observe (Christmas day) X’mas day as ‘Good Governance Day’
The Union HRD Ministry courted controversy over a circular by Navodya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) asking all its schools to observe December 25 — Christmas day — as ‘Good Governance Day’ that led to an uproar in Parliament. While HRD Minister Smriti Irani maintained that schools would remain closed on that day, Congress threatened to move privilege motion against Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu and Irani, alleging that they had misled the Parliament over circulars issued to schools for events on December 25.Courtesy
UGC Link – Published on 18/12/2014 UGC Letter/ Notice /Circular / Reg.: Good Governance Day
NDA Government withdraws circular on Good Governance Day on 25 December (Christmas day)
Live Mint | Thu, Dec 18 2014 | Prashant K. Nanda |
Courtesy
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