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Private institutions have flayed the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for arbitrariness and unfairness in the selection of international online journals and the rates at which they should be mandatorily subscribed. The AICTE, however, has rubbished the allegations.
The Education Promotion Society for India (EPSI), whose advisory committee consists of former Directors of IIMs, IITS and leading chambers, according to its website, has written to the Ministry of Human Resource Development to discuss the issue.
The AICTE recently put out a list of e-journals for mandatory subscription by private technical institutions.
“It is estimated that a US-based company favoured by the AICTE officials will be able to garner an annual business of Rs 1,800 crore….It is baffling as to why only certain e-journals/ databases and suppliers are selected from several equally or more attractive credentials,” says the letter addressed to Mr Kapil Sibal, HRD Minister.
Why have the stakeholders, faculty and institutions, not been consulted, the letter asks.
EPSI has suggested that since these databases are costly and put a heavy financial burden on each institute, why not constitute a consortium similar to those of IIMs, IITs and NITs that leads to a sharing of costs and greater bargaining power with the supplier.
Dr S.S. Mantha, Acting Chairman, AICTE, told Business Line that the allegations were ‘in very bad taste and absolutely wrong'.
“Research in this country is abysmally low. To encourage research and improve the quality of information, we have mandated some world-class journals.
The teachers should know what is happening outside and students should have access to internationally acclaimed journals. We all know that even after 60 years the country has not produced a single paper,” said Dr Mantha.
A committee had been appointed and a list was drawn from the existing journals with the best prices, he said.
“If somebody can give a lesser price, tell us, we'll take that,” he said.
AICTE has mandated institutes offering management courses to purchase online journals from EBSCO for an annual subscription of $3,500, for pharmacy courses to purchase online journals from Bentham and Elsevier for $5,500 per annum, engineering courses to purchase from IEEE (computer engineering) at the rate of $4,980, ASME (mechanical engineering) at the rate of $2,156, ASCE (civil engineering) at the rate of $2,520, McGill (General) for $1,969, Elsevier for $ 6,500, ASTM Digital for $1,100 and so on and so forth, said Dr H. Chaturvedi, Alternate President – EPSI and Director Birla Institute of Management and Technology.
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