In a crackdown on teacher education institutions fraudulently functioning in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed an FIR against managements of 21 institutions and also on the officials of National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) for allowing them to function.
The institutions, which offer B.Ed. and D.Ed. courses, have been accused of functioning without buildings, in some cases operating from fake addresses and submitting fabricated documents. Despite all these violations, the officials of NCTE have been accused of allowing the institutions to run courses for the 2016-17 academic year. These violations were unearthed during investigations by the Anti-Corruption branch of the CBI.
While four colleges in Karnataka have been found to be functioning in Bengaluru, Hubballi, Vijayapura, and Chitradurga, 17 institutions are spread across Andhra Pradesh. The FIR, however, does not name any official of NCTE, but states as “unknown officials”. The CBI has booked them for cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and criminal misconduct. It also notes that officials of the NCTE and inspection team members have worked in connivance with each other.
“The inspection team from NCTE that visits colleges to grant recognition is dependent on these colleges for logistics, documents and data, and no independent enquiry or verification is being conducted. The teams have failed to identify even the discrepancy in the address of the location of the building or institute,” states the FIR, a copy of which is with The Hindu . It further noted that the discrepancies in the documents such as building completion certificates and size of the land were overlooked and the officials gave permission to these institutes. The investigation has also found that the public servants collectively failed to conduct verification and scrutiny of the buildings and instead gave recognition despite “grave irregularities and discrepancies”.
Requires overhaul: Official
An official in the Education Department pointed out that several students studying in these institutes were from other States and came to these colleges only to write exams. “The B.Ed colleges need a major overhaul. There are several irregularities that include lack of faculty, infrastructure and malpractices in the examination process,” the official said, adding that more irregularities would come to light if a detailed probe was conducted.
In fact, in 2012, a task force of Bangalore University, which inspected 99 B.Ed colleges, stated that only 12 were satisfactory and had said that 41 colleges had indulged in irregularities.
