Supreme Court says no to technical education through correspondence courses
In a landmark judgment affecting millions of Students across India, the Supreme Court on Friday ruled against institutes providing technical Education through long-distance courses. Affirming the findings of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the apex court declared illegal the correspondence degrees in subjects such as engineering and computer science.
The SC set aside an Odisha high court order allowing technical education through long-distance courses. It supported a 2015 Punjab and Haryana High Court ruling instead, that said computer science degrees obtained through distance education and regular classes were not equivalent.
The SC also cancelled the engineering degrees of correspondence students who graduated after 2001 from these four deemed universities - JRN Rajasthan Vidyapeeth in Udaipur, Institute of Advanced Studies in Education in Rajasthan's Churu district, Allahabad Agricultural Institute in Uttar Pradesh and Vinayaka Mission Research Foundation in Tamil Nadu. It ordered these varsities to repay the students their tuition fee by May 31, 2018.
To get their degrees, students will be given two attempts before January 15, 2018, to clear an exam conducted by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the University Grants Commission (UGC). Any professional benefits which they might have reaped because of their engineering degrees shall stand cancelled until they clear the exam, ruled the top court.
