How reliable is Distance Education Council and universities like ICFAI, Sikkim Manipal and institutes like SCDL

Hi,

I agree that in distance education corruption is at very high level. For last 10 years I am carefully and closely monitoring India's ODL and found that DEC has given permission to many institutes without any infrastructure. Being an HR professional and a freelance career counsellor, I warned people on time to time and refrained them from joining such institutes. 

Finally CBI booked IGNOU's ex Vice Chancellor (please refer following link)

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/article3695724.ece

But I posted the blog about corruption in distance education as well as distance education council much before on August 19, 2011 and clearly mentioned about Sikkim Manipal University (as a citizen, I realsied it much before then how CBI took so long time to understand that there is corruption is DEC?) you can read my posting from following link:

http://speakhr.blogspot.in/2011/08/people-should-not-opt-mba-pg-courses.html 

I did a survey with more than 120 business managers and asked them whether they accept SCDL, SMU, ICFAI and such other isntitute's qualifications? Not surprising, more than 70% refused to accept these qualification.

The survey can be accessed from:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?fromEmail=true&formkey=dHZrWlAxX29JM296Wjctb2hkMTFNM1E6MQ

I also sent an RTI application on June 20, 2012 

The same is as follows: I did not get a single reply on this from IGNOU and DEC. (This RTI application was also submitted much before than arrest of IGNOU's ex VC. Not only that, If you observe many distance learning institutes are engaged in malpractices, whether it is YCMOU (I mean to say its centres, university may not (just benefit of doubt), Madurai Kamraj University (Where you could pay bribe and copy). Most surprising that the mushrooming of newly opened private universities in different states were allowed to offer distance learning programme even without knowing whether they have required infrastructure. This has to be stopped somewhere. These all raise a serious question do we really need DEC, should we trust it.

____________________________________________________________________________

Application for information under Right to Information Act 2005 section 6 (1)

To

The Public Information Officer (PIO)

Sh. Anil Karwal

Assistant Registrar

INDIRA GANDHI NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY (IGNOU)

MAIDAN GARHI,

NEW DELHI-110 068.

INDIA

Dear Sir,

Please provide me following information

1.      List of all the universities/ deemed universities/ institutes approved by DEC for offering courses under distance mode (Your website is not updated, in the pdf file you say approved upto 2007 etc but it is already 2012 and there is no information on this)

2.      Please provide name of the authorities and designated person with their name and designation who took decision  to grant permission to these institutes.

3.      Please provide information whether an institute which is not a university or deemed university established by an Act of parliament or a state legislature is allowed to offer degree/ diploma/ certificate programme and whether eligible to take recognition from DEC i.e. Distance Education Council.

4.      Please provide information whether the institute recognized by DEC is recognized only by DEC or the joint committee of AICTE-UGC-DEC.

5.      Please supply information that the PG Diploma in management programme offered in distance learning mode through Welingkar institute, Matunga, Mumbai, SCDL (Symbiosis Centre for Distance Learning), Pune is equivalent to an MBA or any post graduate programme and whether students after completing these diplomas are allowed for higher education like Ph.D

6.      Reason for not including The Global Open University, Nagaland in the DEC website (please refer link http://www.dec.ac.in/sou

7.      As per the norms for management programme mentioned in the DEC website, to offer a management programme through distance learning following criteria should be followed:

ADMISSION/SELECTION PROCEDURE
The students of Post Graduate Programme (MBA) be admitted through entrance test. The written test should assess:
" Reasoning ability
" Comprehension and vocabularies
" General knowledge and
" Quantitative abilities
to check preparedness of a student to undertake management studies. In addition to the above, it could also examine the students capability to learn through Distance Mode. The short listing of candidates may be done according to merit prepared on the basis of total profile which may include :

" performance in written test
" work experience
" previous academic records
" performance in group discussion and interview.

Written test should have at least 75% weightage in overall admission procedure. Where admission is not done on the basis of an All India entrance test, it would be desirable that candidate possesses minimum 50% marks in qualifying examination (Bachelor Degree).

However, none of the instituted approved by DEC is following this criteria and these MBA seats are freely sold (exceptions are IGNOU, YCMOU). Please provide the mechanism DEC has adopted to monitor whether DEC approved institutes are following above mentioned norms as well as all other prescribed norms.

8.      As per the norms prescribed on website, minimum duration of the distance learning MBA should be 3 years however almost all universities offering it in 1 year (under the name executive MBA), 2 years and 2.5 years (even IGNOU self has duration of  2 ½ years. Please provide details on mechanism adopted to monitor the violation and action taken so far alongwith institute’s name, action taken, date of action taken.

9.      Please provide information on the basis of what approval given to all DEC approved institutes.

10.  As per the norms prescribed for ODL institutes, those who are not university but a registered society/ trust affiliated to a university need to take NOC from the university they are affiliated please read the excerpts as follows:

“Other ODL institutions registered as societies/trusts and or privately provided managed institutions/colleges which are affiliated to a university for award of degrees.  Such institutions are required to submit No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the affiliating university for starting distance education at the time of submitting proposal for approval from the DEC.”

In this case, please provide NOC copy of the following institutes alongwith name of the university they are affiliated:

1.      SCDL, Pune

2.      IMT Distance and Open Learning Institute, Ghaziabad

3.      AIMA, Delhi

4.      Institute of Rail Transport

5.      Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha, Tamil Nadu

6.      Institute of Management and Development, New Delhi

7.      Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, Ahmedabad

8.      IILM Institute of higher education, Gurgaon

9.    JK Business school, Gurgaon

10.  Institute of Business Management and Research, Bangalore

11.  Narsee Monji Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai

12.  Balaji Institute of Modern Management, Pune

13.  Mumbai Education Trust, Mumbai

14.  Rasthrabhasha Prachar Samit, Wardha

15.  Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research, Mumbai

16.  Sinhgad Technical Education Society, Pune

17.  MIT School of Distance Education, Pune

18.  Indira International Academy, Indira Group of Institutes, Pune

19.  PSB Educational Foundation, Pune

20.  Indian Institute of MaterialManagement, Navi Mumbai

21.  Asian School of Business Management, Bhubaneswar

22.  Confederation of Indian Industry of Logistics, Chennai

23.  NIMT, Greater Noida

24.  IMT Distance and Open Learning Institute, Ghaziabad

25.  BLS Institute of Management, Ghaziabad

26.  NIMT Institute of Technology and Management, Ghaziabad

11.  Please provide basis on which the approval provided to all institutes approved by DEC

12.  Please provide information on infrastructure available, faculty available and inspection report of the DEC with the name of the committee who evaluated the institutes, things and parameters evaluated, finding and recommendation basis for these institutes.

Please note the following:

1.      As per section 2(f) of the RTI Act

"information" means any material in any form, including records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority under any other law for the time being in force;

So it includes the word opinion hence information cannot be denied if opinion / reason asked (any word mentioned above for information request where word “reason” is sued should be understand as opinion also).

2.      RTI Act does not refrain an application if lot of questions are asked (there is no such limit prescribed) so this also does not become a reason for rejecting application.

3.      As per section 5, there should be one public information officer to receive application, collect and respond to applicant.

So please do not reply me by saying forwarded this person or that person. As all the information requested above is related to distance learning only, please collect information if you have multiple information officers in your division and respond me collectively.

I am giving extract of the Act here for your ready reference

5	(1)		Every public authority shall, within one hundred days of the enactment of this Act, designate as many officers as the Central Public Information Officers or State Public Information Officers, as the case may be, in all administrative units or offices under it as may be necessary to provide information to persons requesting for the information under this Act.
	(2)		Without prejudice to the provisions of sub-section (1), every public authority shall designate an officer, within one hundred days of the enactment of this Act, at each sub-divisional level or other sub-district level as a Central Assistant Public Information Officer or a State Assistant Public Information Officer, as the case may be, to receive the applications for information or appeals under this Act for forwarding the same forthwith to the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or senior officer specified under sub-section (1) of section 19 or the Central Information Commission or the State Information Commission, as the case may be: Provided that where an application for information or appeal is given to a Central Assistant Public Information Officer or a State Assistant Public Information Officer, as the case may be, a period of five days shall be added in computing the period for response specified under sub-section (1) of section 7.
	(3)		Every Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, shall deal with requests from persons seeking information and render reasonable assistance to the persons seeking such information.
	(4)		The Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, may seek the assistance of any other officer as he or she considers it necessary for the proper discharge of his or her duties.
	(5)		Any officer, whose assistance has been sought under sub-section (4), shall render all assistance to the Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, seeking his or her assistance and for the purposes of any contravention of the provisions of this Act, such other officer shall be treated as a Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case may be.

As per section 2(j) IV of the RTI Act, I am allowed to take information in floppy, disk (CD/ DVD) or any electronic format. Since it is IT era and every organization uses IT and being a division which deal with education, you must be using the most modern technology and so you have all these data in soft copy format/ in computer. So please provide me these information in compact disc. I am ready to pay Rs. 50 for the same.

Please provide the information at earliest

Regards

Govind Sharma (applicant)

Date: June 20, 2012

Fee paid details:

Indian Postal order no. 005 604801 dated: 20.06.2012

Amount: Rs. 10

___

Govind