Port Blair, April 1: The National Students Union of India's State General Secretary, Mr. Saurav Nair has urged the Ministry of Education Minister Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan to immediately stop 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".
On 25th March, 2022, the UGC issued a public notice stating that "The Annamalai University was only recognised to offer any programme in ODL mode till academic year 2014-2015 and no further recognition has been 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, 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 Andaman & Nicobar Islands had passed from Annamalai University between 2015 and 2022. But despite paying thousands of rupees as fees, their future is in uncertain now.
He urged the MoE Minister to take right course of action and approve these degrees as students should not be made to suffer for someone else's fault.