What is the significance of AICTE?

AICTE stands for All India Council for Technical Education. It is a statutory body and is the national council for technical education in the country. It was established in 1945 with the prime aim to foster the development of education system in India. It was initially only an advisory body under Department of Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, under Government of India. However, it was in 1987 that it was given a statutory status under an Act of the Parliament.

AICTE accredits all the postgraduate and graduate programs as per specific categories of technology for the institutions in India. It is thus different from University Grants Commission or UGC which only accredits the non-technical educational institutions in the country. AICTE is also immensely involved in providing training, research and development of the technical education in the country. Latter includes many courses like trade and commerce, science and engineering, etc. It has 8 departments and is based in New Delhi with regional offices in many cities like Bangalore, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kanpur, Thiruvananthapuram, Kolkata etc.