Many Indian students who have completed their engineering and Masters’ degree programmes from prominent universities and educational institutions in the UK have been finding the going tough back home. They are finding it hard to land government jobs here or get admissions in prominent government educational institutions as the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) and the University Grants Commission (UGC) are not ready to recognise and award them with equivalent degrees.
The AIU, the nodal agency created by an agreement of all Indian universities for according equivalent certificates/degrees since 1925, has maintained that it would not be able to give any form of equivalent certificates/degrees to engineering “degrees” resulting out of three years of study or Masters or MBA “degrees” involving one year of study.
Dr Venna Bhalla, Joint Secretary, evaluation, AIU, said, “How can we accord equivalence to degrees that differ in durations compared to Indian course structures? We have our own criteria which we have to abide by.” But some positive change can be expected as the AIU has scheduled a review meeting for evaluation of degrees from foreign universities sometime next week.