AICTE letter against ‘all pass’ move in circulation, adds to chaos

Earlier, Tamil Nadu government had recently declared all pass for the college students, who also have arrear exams in various subjects but Anna University did not accept to the Higher Education Department’s decision to declare for its students, who have arrear exams. Anna University vice-chancellor MK Surappa said that his institution will not implement the government’s order to promote especially students having arrears.

Giving reasons for his decision, Surappa said that the AICTE, which had recently communicated him, had not accepted to award marks without conducting an examination and graduating students, who were keeping arrears in several subjects.

However, Higher Education Minister KP Anbalagan asserted that the government did not receive any communication from AICTE against State’s decision to promote the students keeping arrears. He further said that even Anna University had not communicated with his department about the AICTE letter. With the war of words continuing, an email content of AICTE, that was communicated to Surappa, suddenly emerged in social media since Tuesday morning confusing the authorities in the Higher Education Department.

The message allegedly from AICTE stated that students who are declared passed in arrear subjects without attending exams will not be recognised by industry or other universities. The AICTE representative also threatened to withdraw the approval of Anna University.

Doubting the genuineness of the email, a senior official from the department once again said that till now Anna University had not sent the AICTE email copy. When enquired with Anna University spokesperson in connection with the email “leak” in the social media, the he neither refused nor accepted authenticity of AICTE email.

Tiff between Higher Education Department and Anna University had started when the institution refused to conduct counselling for the students seeking engineering seats from 2019 following a row with the authorities on the re-shuffling of the (Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions) TNEA Committee.