RTI to A.I.C.T.E regd Private institutions- Student Fee, Grievance Committee, Course Prospectus, Technical Education, Education Costing and more...

[Vijay Anand]

Ajith Sankar was a faculty of a leading management institution, and was an ardent supporter of 5th Pillar by way of organizing 5th Pillar's 'Freedom from Corruption' workshop to his students. He has since resigned and is pursuing the RTI way, to obtain information and data relating to the three decade malaise of capitation fee in self-financing colleges. Please read below for a summary of his findings. If anyone wishes to contact him, please email or call me. I will connect you with him. 

Hello All,

The below are updates on technical education regulated by AICTE - All India Council for Technical Education. These may already be known to some, and for some, it may not be.

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1.
An RTI that i filed with AICTE confirmed that every institution that offers courses such as MBA, engineering etc. has to constitute a grievance redressal committee (GRC). The RTI reply states that "it is mandatory for all AICTE approved institutions to constitute grievance redressal committee for redressal of the grievance". If anyone has any grievance regarding the fee, one can approach the GRC, and if one is not satisfied, one can appeal to the OMBUDSMAN of the affiliating university. AICTE states that "...if you have specific complaint against AICTE approved institution, you may write to Complaint Cell, AICTE with relevant documents etc." Replies given by AICTE to questions asked in Rajya Sabha has detailed the punitive actions taken by AICTE on the institutions that have overcharged fee from students or engaged in fraudulent fee patterns.

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2.
AICTE mandates that the details of fees that are charged from the students should be included in the course prospectus. The student should not be charged a fee that is more than what is mentioned in the prospectus.

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3.
Media reports indicate that AICTE has accepted the report made by Justice Sri Krishna Committee regarding the recommendations that prescribes guidelines for charging tuition and other fee for professional courses ( http://www.aicte-india.org/downloads/Justice%20B.%20N.%20Srikrishna%20Committee%20Report.pdf ). The media reports indicate that AICTE has now asked the states to take the necessary action regarding fee decision for each of the states.
For MBA programmes across India, the committee suggests a MAXIMUM fee of Rs 157,800 - Rs 171,300 per year. So, the MAXIMUM fee for the two year course, will be approximately 3 lakhs - 3.5 lakhs. Accredited institutions are allowed to charge 20% higher, while autonomous institutions are allowed to charge 10% higher.

a. My analysis of the cost estimation revealed that the methodology adopted by the committee to reach this fee, provides a lot of flexibility. Considering parameters such as (i) the salary that i was receiving two years earlier as a faculty member of a business school that is both autonomous and accredited (ii) the faculty-student ratio followed (iii) infrastructure availability and (iv) other parameters, i appreciate that the committee has aptly termed this fee as the MAXIMUM. I was also considering the state of existence of the above parameters at most business schools in India. Based on these parameters, i was doing some 'permutations and combinations' with the various numbers that has gone into the cost estimation. This made me re-realise that an effective MBA programme can be offered to a student even with a course fee of Rs 1.5 lakh, per student, for the whole programme (two years). This was similar to the number that i reached almost an year ago when i was doing an approximation of how much it cost to offer an effective MBA program - it was less than Rs 1.5 lakh for two years, per student, for a batch size of 30-45. Also, if the number of faculty members who consider their work to be a devotion increases, and the number of students who live the true meaning of studenthood increases, the fee that is charged from students can be significantly reduced further.

There are also colleges that generate revenue through other means. This includes renting out their premises (classrooms, conference halls, playgrounds etc.) for external functions, doing consulting and MDPs, and also do fund generation from governmental and other funding bodies for research, workshops, faculty development, infrastructure development etc. The committee report do not mention about considering these aspects.

It is appreciated that the committee has been transparent in listing out the external organizations from whom it has sought opinions - primarily those organizations that represent the self-financing and private institutions.

b. You may do a costing exercise for the various other technical education programmes listed as part of the committee's work (pharma, hotel management, engineering, architecture etc.).

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Feel free to forward/ share this message with all.

Regards,
Ajith

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Vijay Anand

Co-founder & President - 5th Pillar

Mobile: +91 9840618948   |   ENDcor...@5thpillar.org |   Off: +91 44 65273056 

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