Tech institutions told to follow new students’ redressal norms

AICTE, which had launched new norms in Student Grievance Redressal during the end of 2019, has made it compulsory from February for all of its affiliated engineering and management colleges to have an online grievance redressal mechanism to help sort out students’ problems.

A senior official from Tamil Nadu Directorate of Technical Education (DOTE) told DT Next that new grievances redressal cell deals with all types of grievances, complaints and malpractices received from students. “Each technical institution should mandatorily establish a registry, headed by an employee of the concerned institution to receive those grievances, where an aggrieved student could send their representation for redressal,” he added.

Accordingly, all aggrieved students should henceforth approach Grievance Redressal Committee in the first instance and if they are not satisfied with the decision, they could send their appeals to the ombudsman directly.

The ombudsman shall exercise its powers to hear those grievances and ensure its speedy redressal within one month of the receipt of the appeal.

The official said that AICTE also asked the State to monitor Student Grievance Redressal Cell in all the colleges and send reports on monthly basis. The institutions, which fail to implement the new recommendations, would be penalised with even withdrawal of approval and affiliation besides withholding of grants, according to the new regulations of AICTE. Accordingly, engineering colleges have been asked to prominently furnish on its official portal and in its prospectus all the relevant information in respect of Students Grievance Redressal.