In an attempt to protect their degrees, several students of the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE) have been sitting on an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar asking the Government to reinstate the institute’s accreditation. Two years ago, the Ministry of Human Resource Development took away the accreditation of the institute saying it doesn’t follow All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) norms. Now with the change of Government, these students are hopeful that their degrees would be made valid.
According to students, IETE was founded way before the AICTE got statutory status, which is why it should not be just written off. “Our institution was founded in 1953 while AICTE got its statutory status in 1987. An institution which has had a successful run has now been shunned because it doesn’t meet
AICTE norms!” exclaimed Dev Shukla, third-year student of BTech in Computer Science at the institute.
Of almost a 100 students protesting at Jantar Mantar, eight were on hunger strike. Raju Patel, a BTech graduate of the institute rued, “What about the future of thousands of
students who came to the institution based on its past reputationIJ The Government is disrespecting the values of an old institute like IETE.”
These students had even met HRD Minister Smriti Irani on July 22 regarding the same. However, Dev said that they didn’t get a positive response.