IGNOU’s B.Tech Degrees Gets Validation from AICTE

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has validated the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU’s) B.Tech degrees given in the past. These degrees were given to the students up to the 2009-10 batch upon successful completion of their courses in the distance and open learning mode.

However, AICTE has prohibited IGNOU from offering any engineering programmes in the distance learning mode in the future. This move comes after the Supreme Court heard a petition filed by the students on July 3, and held that the approval by AICTE for IGNOU’s B.Tech programmes was not mandatory. Roughly 3,000 students had received B.Tech degrees from IGNOU.

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It was a question about the future of these students as the distance education council (DEC) had specified to IGNOU in July 2009 to stop offering B.Tech in the open mode as this programme wasn’t met with approval by the AICTE.

But the DEC had nothing to say regarding the validity of the degrees awarded to the students. It also did not fix any guidelines to validate the degrees of the students even after getting instructions from the HRD Ministry.

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The decision to validate the B.Tech degrees of IGNOU was taken at the AICTE’s executive committee meeting held recently.

The AICTE noted that these B.Tech degrees should be seen as valid as an exception or a special case but this cannot be taken as a precedent. AICTE asked IGNOU to not offer any technical programme which has an extensive laboratory component in the open or distance learning mode.