AICTE needs a makeover
Recently while hearing a PIL (public interest litigation) petition on the need to conduct a national common entrance examination for admission into all higher institutions of professional education, a bench of the Supreme Court expressed serious concern about allegations of corruption against the Delhi-based AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education). The shady reputation of AICTE and several other higher education regulatory authorities are an open secret in Indian academia. But this is the first time that the Supreme Court has made such strong observations against them. Similarly members of Parliament have also expressed concern about the functioning of AICTE and other professional education licensing authorities such as the Medical Council of India, Dental Council, and Pharmaceutical Council.
Under the AICTE Act, 1987 the council has been given wide powers of licensing, regulation and supervision over institutions dispensing engineering, business management, teacher training and pharmacy education. The quality of education dispensed by India’s 1,800 engineering colleges, 1,500 B-schools and 8,000 teacher training colleges is of vital importance to the fast-track Indian economy, which is currently averaging 8 percent-plus annual rates of GDP growth, to maintain this momentum.
In this context it’s important to appreciate that since the 1990s there has been a sea change in the technical education scenario in India. Earlier technical and professional institutions of education were mostly government promoted and few and far between. Therefore admission into the six showpiece IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) and even into the 30 RECs (Regional Engineering Colleges now known as National Institutes of Technology) was fiercely competitive, with hardly one-two percent of 200,000-300,000 aspirants writing the annual joint entrance exam (JEE) of the IITs being admitted. But in the mid 1980s following initial liberalisation of the Indian economy, education entrepreneurs anticipating rising demand for engineering, business and technical professionals rushed to promote new colleges of professional education.
Interestingly AICTE also started operating as a regulatory-cum-licensing authority at this time. That was an appropriate time to create a healthy and progressive environment for imparting quality education in professional disciplines. Unfortunately the greed of ‘edupreneurs’ combined with the willingness of parents to pay high fees and premia for admissions, the malleability of the AICTE management, and the vested interest of politicians (many of whom taking advantage of insider information promoted professional education colleges) resulted in a lack of rigour in the process of approving new institutions.
In the circumstances, what should be the role of AICTE and other regulatory bodies? Corporates struggling for shares in competitive markets need graduates with in-depth education in core disciplines and more than a passing understanding of several allied fields.
This is a tall order which demands institutional autonomy. Therefore it’s high time that its rigid framework of universally applicable rules and regulations are abandoned and AICTE is transformed from a licensing and regulatory authority into a supervisory organisation. The council’s role should be to set global benchmarks and create enabling environments for institutional managements. Standards need to be set and suggestions made for curriculum improvement, measuring teaching-learning outcomes, upgrading research, consultancy, extension, physical infrastructure and learning resources.
B
ut in the process of transforming AICTE from a licensing and regulatory authority into an apex level supervisory institution for technical and business management education, it’s vital to completely de-link the National Board of Accreditation (NBA), which approves and assesses technical education study program-mes, from AICTE. Currently NBA is a closely controlled subsidiary operating from the council’s premises. NBA needs to be transformed into an autonomous and indepen-dent entity on the lines of NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council) which evaluates and grades non-technical universities and colleges countywide. Like NAAC, NBA needs to adopt institution assessment methodologies and benchmarks which are globally accepted. This will result in its gradation of colleges and institutes of technical education, inspiring confidence in industry. Following de-linking of NBA from AICTE, the latter could focus wholly on creating new curriculums, researching and developing new pedagogies, teacher training and improving institutional governance.
The reform of AICTE (and other professional education regulatory bodies) on these lines would give it a new lease of life and enable the council which has been subject to a barrage of criticism of late, to play a genuinely effective role in raising standards of professional education. This is a national imperative in the new era of unprecedented shortages of skilled professionals manifesting in the fast-growing Indian economy.
(Dr. Arun Nigavekar is former chairman of UGC and founder director of NAAC)