All India Council for Technical Education

All India Council for Technical Education
AbbreviationAICTE
FormationNovember 1945; 79 years ago (November 1945)
HeadquartersNew Delhi
Location
Chairman
T. G. Sitharam
Member Secretary
Rajive Kumar[2]
Vice Chairman
Dr. Abhay Jere[3]
Main organ
Council
AffiliationsDepartment of Higher Education, Ministry of Education
Budget420 crore (US$49 million)
(FY2022–23 est.)[4]
Websitewww.aicte-india.org

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is a statutory body, and a national-level council for technical education, under the Department of Higher Education.[5] Established in November 1945 first as an advisory body, which was given statutory status by an Act of Parliament in 1987, the AICTE is responsible for proper planning and coordinated development of the technical education and management education system in India.

It is assisted by 10 Statutory Boards of Studies, namely, UG Studies in Eng. & Tech., PG and Research in Eng. and Tech., Management Studies, Vocational Education, Technical Education, Pharmaceutical Education, Architecture, Hotel Management and Catering Technology, Information Technology, Town and Country Planning. The AICTE has its new headquarters building in Delhi on the Nelson Mandela Road, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, 110 067, which has the offices of the chairman, vice-chairman and the member secretary, plus it has regional offices at Kanpur, Chandigarh, Gurugram, Mumbai, Bhopal, Vadodara, Kolkata, Guwahati, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram.[6]

In its 25 April 2013 judgment, the Supreme Court said "as per provisions of the AICTE Act and University Grants Commission (UGC) Act, the council has no authority which empowers it to issue or enforce any sanctions on colleges affiliated with the universities as its role is to provide only guidance and recommendations." Subsequently, AICTE was getting approval from the Supreme court to regulate technical colleges on a year to year basis till January 2016, when AICTE got blanket approval for publishing the Approval Process Handbook and approve technical colleges including management for the session 2016-17 and in all future sessions."[7]

Objectives

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According to the All India Council for Technical Education, 1987, the AICTE is vested with statutory authority for planning, formulation and maintenance of norms and standards, quality assurance through school accreditation, funding in priority areas, monitoring and evaluation, maintaining parity of certification and awards and ensuring coordinated and integrated development and management of technical education in the country.[8] In the words of the Act itself:

To provide for establishment of an All India council for Technical Education with a view to the proper planning and co-ordinated development of the technical education system throughout the country, the promotion of qualitative improvement of such education in relation to planned quantitative growth and the regulation and proper maintenance of norms and standards in the technical education system and for matters connected therewith.

AICTE bureaus

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The AICTE is composed of the e-Governance, Approval, Planning and Coordination, Academic, University, Administration, Finance, and Research, Institutional and Faculty Development Bureaus. There are 10 additional Board Studies dealing with technician, vocational, undergraduate engineering, postgraduate engineering and research, architecture, town and country planning, pharmacy, management, applied arts and crafts, hotel management and catering technology education. For each bureau, adviser is the bureau head who is assisted by technical officers and other supporting staff. The multidiscipline technical officer and staff of the Council are on deputation (the tenure staff uses their addresses ending in aicteindia.co.in) or on contract from government departments, University Grants Commission, academic institutions, etc.

Increase in approved institutions

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Growth of Technical Institutions in the Country[9]

Year Engineering Management MCA Pharmacy Architecture HMCT Total
2006–07 1511 1132 1003 665 116 64 4491
2007–08 1668 1149 1017 854 116 81 4885
2008–09 2388 1523 1095 1021 116 87 6230
2009–10 2972 1940 1169 1081 106 93 7361
2010–11 3222 2262 1198 1114 108 100 8004
2011–12 3393 2385 1228 1137 116 102 8361
2012–13 3495 2450 1241 1145 126 105 8562
2013–14 3384 2450 1241 1031 105 81 8562
2014–15 3392 2450 1241 1025 114 77 8562
2015–16 3364 2450 1241 1027 117 77 8562
2016–17 3288 2450 1241 1034 115 74

Growth of Seats in different Programs in Technical Institutions[9]

Year Engineering Management MCA Pharmacy Architecture HMCT Total
2005–06 499697 32708 4379 4435 541219
2006–07 550986 94704 56805 39517 4543 4242 750797
2007–08 653290 121867 70513 52334 4543 5275 907822
2008–09 841018 149555 73995 64211 4543 5794 1139116
2009–10 1071896 179561 78293 68537 4133 6387 1408807
2010–11 1314594 277811 87216 98746 4991 7393 1790751
2011–12 1485894 352571 92216 102746 5491 7693 2046611
2012–13 1761976 385008 100700 121652 5996 8401 2236743

Reforms

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In 2016, three important initiatives were taken up by AICTE. First one was a responsibility given by MHRD to evolve a national MOOCs platform SWAYAM. Second one is that of launching a Smart India Hackathon-2017 challenging the young bright talented students of technical colleges to solve the 598 problems of 29 different Government departments. Third one is that of launching of an AICTE's Student Start up Policy by Hon. President on 16 Nov, during visitors conference from rashtrapati Bhavan. In 2009, the Union Minister of Education formally communicated his intentions of closing down AICTE and related body, the University Grants Commission (UGC).[10] This later led to reforms in the way the AICTE approves institutes, and to establishing the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) as an independent body.[11]

On 6 June 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the AICTE along with the University Grants Commission would be scrapped and replaced by a new body called Heera (Higher Education Empowerment Regulation Agency (HEERA))[12] This has been done in a bid to simplify the excessive regulations that exist due to both these bodies. According to the draft of law backed on the ideas of NITI Aayog and the Prime Minister Office, the National Council for Teacher Education was also planned to be subsumed by HEERA.[13]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Regional Offices Archived 19 January 2010 at the Wayback Machine AICTE website.
  2. ^ "Leadership Team". www.aicte-india.org. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
  3. ^ "Dr. Abhay Jere | Government of India, All India Council for Technical Education". www.aicte-india.org.
  4. ^ Kalita, Bishal (1 February 2022). "Higher Education Budget For Next Financial Year At Rs 40,828 Cr; 6.46% More Than 2021-22". NDTV 3:14pm IST. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  5. ^ Technical Education Overview Archived 5 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine Department of Higher Education
  6. ^ National Level Councils Archived 1 February 2010 at the Wayback Machine Tech Ed., Department of Higher Education.
  7. ^ "AICTE to appeal Supreme Court order stating its role as 'advisory'". The Times of India. PTI. 30 April 2013. Archived from the original on 4 May 2013. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
  8. ^ "All India Council for Technical Education, 1987" (PDF). Government of India. Retrieved 7 March 2019.
  9. ^ a b "All India Council for Technical Education - Approval Process Handbook (2013 – 2014)" (PDF). AICTE.
  10. ^ "UGC, AICTE to be scrapped: Sibal". iGovernment.in. Archived from the original on 9 October 2011. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  11. ^ "AICTE to revamp its approval system next week". Business Standard. 8 January 2010. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  12. ^ "Modi's HEERA likely to replace UGC, AICTE soon". Hindustan Times. 6 June 2017. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
  13. ^ "Why Modi government is replacing UGC with a new higher education regulator". The Economic Times. 29 June 2018. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
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