Anantapur: Students fall prey to bogus agri institutes

Anantapur: Agricultural institutes without proper permission from state government continue to run in the state. These bogus colleges and 'universities' have not been recognised by either the state agricultural universities or Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR).

These colleges are offering 35 under-graduate programmes, including B.Sc Agriculture, Horticulture and Forestry which are not recognised by ICAR and 25 post-graduate programmes. Though they do not have PhD graduates as research supervisors but they are offering Research programmes in more than 20 disciplines.

Many private universities have come up only recently. Most of these institutes offer multidisciplinary professional courses similar to state-funded universities. At times, it is believed by many that the private education is considered to be more advantageous than the public one. Some private educational organisations have better infrastructural facilities and create better job opportunities. However, some private managements in the recent past have been under the scanner over quality of education they impart in reality despite their exaggerated claims. Many private institutions have absolutely no buildings or campus; and some are running from one room tenements, shopping complexes.

Even the guidelines issued by the UGC on courses to be taught and award of academic degrees have been ignored. The brochures of such institutions do carry the pictures which in fact make the buildings look extravagantly exhibitionist and the pictures of hostels are even more shocking as they would be of some sophisticated hotels. But the harsh reality as is found in the report reveals that the universities are wholly incapable of imparting any education owing to the absence of basic infrastructure like classrooms, libraries, laboratories or campus.

Apart from misleading information about themselves given to stakeholders, there have been instances of gross violation of regulations by these institutes. Though by conferment of a legal status of a university, they have been empowered to award degrees, the private universities have been found to be running professional courses without prior permission from regulatory bodies such as AICTE, MCI, PCI, ICAR, etc., If the institutes do not subscribe to the mandates of the regulatory bodies the ultimate losers would be the students. It should be clearly understood that the degrees and certificates awarded by such universities would not be recognised by the professional organisations. The students would be the losers twice as they would lose money as well as their invaluable time.

The exorbitant fee charged by them apparently discriminates against those that can't afford making it clear that there is no philanthropic approach as such. Educationist and Intellectuals Forum president M Suresh Babu speaking to 'The Hans India' appealed to the government to release a white paper which are genuine or fake institutions. Genuine education institution managers are appealing to the state government to constitute a committee to look into the bonafides of institutions and release a note on what are bonafide and what are not so that students can make right choices.