Students cautioned against unauthorised agri varsities

Anantapur: Private agricultural institutes without proper permission from state government continue to run in the district and in the state. These bogus colleges and institutions like Greenfields Institute of Agriculture Research and Development, Apollo Institute of Technology and Research and Innovation University and also other colleges are not recognised by either state agricultural university or 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 doctorates as research supervisors but they are offering research programmes in more than 20 disciplines.

Many of these universities offer multidisciplinary professional courses similar to state funded universities. At times it is believed by many that the private education is more advantageous than the public one. And at times it is not a myth that some private educational organisations have better infrastructural facilities and create better job opportunities. Some private managements in the recent past have been under the scanner for a reason which has to do with quality in their imparting of education though their paperwork spoke about them in exaggerated terms. Though the number is encouragingly high and indicates that the nation has been progressive, the sheer pace of such growth reflects the other side of some private institutions which 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. 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 and ICAR.

Educationist and Intellectuals Forum president M Suresh Babu speaking to The Hans India has appealed to government to release a white paper on 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.