MSU offering 329 unapproved courses: CAG report

C Shivakumar/ Sruthisagar Yamunan

Chennai: In what could come as a shock to thousands of students across the country, a report from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has revealed that the Manonmaniam Sundaranar University (MSU) had been offering 329 programmes through  "Technical Collaboration" from 2008 under Distance Education Mode without required approvals. 

A 'Factual Note' prepared by the Deputy Accountant General (ISC II), P S Iyengar, has observed that the varsity neither had the approval of the  Distance Education Council (DEC) or from other bodies like All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for the courses.

"Approval of DEC is mandatory for all institutions for commencing course for degree/diploma/certificate through distance mode," the 'confidential' note, a copy of which is available with Express and sent to the Higher Education Secretary in March, has observed. 

 

The note, which is likely to be included in the CAG report for 2011-2012, also stated that the varsity  violated the instructions of the DEC by franchising 74 private institutions to run the University courses "beyond its jurisdiction."

Also, the varsity disregarded the instructions of the State government in 2010 to stop conducting classes such collaboarive courses outside its jurisdiction. 

"It is pertinent to mention that after the reciept of the above communication, the University entered into MoU with five educational institutions to run the courses..," the note observed. 

The document said the University had also "unauthorisedly allowed" the collaborators to franchise sub-centres to conduct the programmes, which led to around 1060 such centres running the University courses throughout the country. 

“Having known that the courses offered under technical collaboration were in violation of DEC instructions and further on the basis of requests from the technical collaborators, the university ordered distance education mode need not be mentioned in the statement of marks and diploma issued by the university with effect from June 2010,” the report added.