Port Blair, Apr 01: Mr. Saurav Nair, State General Secretary, National Students Union of India has urged Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan, Education Minister of India to immediately stop the University Grant Commission (UGC) from invalidating the degrees of Annamalai University Students after learning that the UGC has termed the Open & Distance learning (ODL) degrees awarded by the Annamalai University as “invalid”.
The UGC issued a public notice on 25th March 2022 stating that “The Annamalai University was only recognized to offer any programme in ODL mode till the academic year 2014-2015 and no further recognition will be accorded to it, to offer any programme through ODL mode. Accordingly, the ODL programmes offered by the Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu without prior approval of UGC is invalid and the University is solely responsible for the career consequences of the students, if any, arising out of the same.”
In a letter addressed to the MoE Minister, Mr. Nair asked him to initiate disciplinary action against officials of Annamalai University for awarding invalid degrees. He also requested him to constitute a probe panel to fix the responsibility.
He claimed that hundreds of students from the A&N Islands had passed from Annamalai University between 2015 and 2022. And despite paying thousands of rupees as fees, their future is uncertain.
Hence, he urged the MoE Minister to take the right course of action and approve these degrees as students shouldn’t suffer for someone else’s fault.
