Changing higher educational scenario in Northeast

Higher and technical educational scenario of the Northeastern region have been drastically changing from last five years. Although facilities of world class institutions are now available in the region itself, every year a large number of students from the region fall in the trap of not only fake institutions, but also some approved institutions without required facilities because of their colorful advertisements and aggressive marketing. Thus spake M Haque, the president of North East Forum for Technical Institutions while addressing the media recently in Guwahati.

The North East Forum for Technical Institutions (NEFTi) is the first of its kind initiative with an objective to work for coordination among all the private All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) approved Technical Institutions of Northeast India. Other objectives of the organization include improving the quality of technical education, stimulating the industrialization by providing world class technical manpower, providing a talent pool of budding engineers to prospective recruiters, publish scientific journals, organize inter-college competitions amongst the students of the member organizations for betterment of students, provide guidance and coaching facility for higher education and research etc; he added.

In addition to providing world class infrastructure and other facilities for quality technical education in the Northeast to promote brotherhood and friendship among all the AICTE approved technical institutions of the region, NEFTi has successfully organized NEFTi 20-Twenty cricket tournament, NEFTi football and NEFTi volleyball tournament during the year and 2012 and 2013.

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the statutory body of Govt of India that grants approval to the institutes to run the courses in management studies (post graduate) engineering, pharmacy, architecture, hotel management and catering etc; provided the institute affiliated to any university.

The AICTE and UGC warns time to time that the degrees and diplomas which are under preview of AICTE if not approved by them have no value in any respect. The courses cannot be run even from any temporary campus or from any rental premises. AICTE’s website that has tabulated about 300 plus such fake institutes. Maharashtra and Delhi have 75 fake institutes each. Andhra Pradesh comes next with 52 such institutes, followed by West Bengal (34), Uttar Pradesh (30), Karnataka (26), Haryana (17) and Tamil Nadu (14). A large number of such institutes are still unlisted and unnoticed by the AICTE and they all are misguiding students’ community.

The AICTE and UGC are helpless in curbing the mushroom growth of such institutes as it can only notify the list of institutes which are approved and therefore it is the responsibility of students and their parents to verify the authenticity of the institutions in visiting the AICTE website before taking admission into any institutions, Haque cautioned.

Even in Guwahati many such fake institutions are offering BE/B.Tech/MBA degrees and therefore students should be careful before taking admission. He advised to the aspiring students to visit the campus first to see the infrastructural facility, verify the documents like affiliation letter by the university and approval letter by the AICTE in the name of institute. However, if any university offers any course through its campus no separate affiliation is required. Students must visit both AICTE and the university websites time to time to get the necessary updates regarding institute concerned, he advised. NEDFi chief also advised the aspiring students to visit the campus first to see the infrastructural facility, verify the documents like affiliation letter by the university and approval letter by the AICTE in the name of institute. However, if any university offers any course through its campus, no separate affiliation is required. All the member institutions of NEFTi are AICTE approved world class institutions which are affiliated to different local. universities. Private institutions having AICTE approval are eligible to become the member of NEFTi.