Bengaluru IISc could lose eligibility to run MTech courses

BENGALURU: India’s premier science and research institution which is ranked among the top 100 in the world, Bengaluru-based Indian Institute of Science (IISc) could lose its eligibility to offer technical courses from the coming academic year.

According to a recent Supreme Court judgment, it is mandatory for all deemed universities across India to get an approval from All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to run technical courses. IISc is one of the deemed universities which offers M.Tech course.

On Friday, Supreme Court imposed an interim stay on engineering admissions at deemed universities which lack the regulators’ approval for technical courses. In November 2017, the Supreme Court had given a judgment that all deemed universities must get the regulator’s approval for the courses they are running, and to run technical courses the universities need AICTE’s approval.

Following the Supreme Court judgment, University Grants Commission (UGC) issued a public notice on November 22, 2017, where it said, “1994 AICTE regulations do apply to deemed-to-be universities, and the deemed-to-be universities in the present matter were not justified in introducing any new course in technical education without the approval of AICTE... Consequent to aforesaid direction, all degrees in engineering awarded by concerned deemed-to-be universities stand cancelled.”

With the fresh direction given by the apex court on Friday, over 30 deemed universities, including IISc, are under threat. The new academic session is likely to begin in July.

AICTE had set a deadline of February 5 for institutions to apply by introducing a provision in its approval process handbook 2018-19. It said that institutions deemed-to-be universities and private universities which are seeking AICTE approval for the first time must apply as a new technical institution for the existing technical courses they offer.

But despite this deadline and provision, only 50 institutions have applied for approval. AICTE Chairman Dr Anil Sahasrabudhe said, “There are 123 deemed universities across the nation of which 80 offer technical courses. But, only 50 have applied for approval.” And IISc is not among them.

Application pending before NAAC

Another guideline issued by UGC allowed higher education institutions with accreditation scores above 3.26 from National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) to open new courses without the approval of regulators. Unfortunately, IISc has not yet received the NAAC accreditation. According to sources from IISc, the application is pending before NAAC. “We are confident that we will get high scoring from NAAC. As per our information, it is under final screening and we might get the results any time,” a top official of IISc said.