The All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has decided to not permit any technical education programmes to be operated on either a part-time or evening basis at any technical institution. A senior AICTE official has informed that new part-time MBA courses as well as admissions to existing ones will not be approved by the council from the next academic session. B-schools in India are required to apply to the AICTE for renewing their part-time courses. The official said that the facility by the AICTE is being misused by several B-schools as they are using it to run other programmes on the pretext of part-time MBA programmes. “These B-schools are not working according to the framework that has been regulated and hence we have taken this step,” said the official. It is being said that the move by the council ay have an adverse effect on around 400 colleges and 20,000 students. There are about 2,500 management schools in India that have been approved by the AICTE. The B-schools that will be affected by the decision are not happy. Several management institutes in Mumbai have decided to file a public interest suit in the Bombay High Court. Directors at three B-schools have said that the new move by the AICTE would make higher education unaffordable and prevent the growth and development of working professionals who may want to further their education while they are working.
