Punjab orders audit of technical institutes

Chandigarh: The Punjab government has ordered the academic and administrative audit of government and private technical educational institutions of the state, a minister said on Monday.

Punjab Technical Education and Industrial Training Minister Charanjit Singh Channi said that academic and administrative audits of government and private industrial training institutes and polytechnic colleges would be conducted by May 31 this year.

“This audit would be done by teams of government officials. The audit report would be submitted by March 31 and 15 days would be given to the institutes to fulfil the shortcomings.

“The whole process of audit would be completed by May 31 and if the institutes fail to fulfil the terms and conditions, then action would be initiated and even the board would be forced to de-affiliate such institutes,” Channi said after a meeting held here with the officials of the Technical Education and Industrial Training Department and Board.

He said that the step was taken to initiate reforms and provide quality technical education to the youth of the state.

The minister said that major changes are being made to improve the quality of technical education and some hard steps are being taken.

“Need of the hour is to improve the credibility and merit of the technical educational institutes so that the national and international industry should themselves come forward for the placements of the youth of the state,” Channi added.

He said that the Punjab government has also decided to set up a system to monitor the examination centres of government and private technical educational institutes online through CCTV cameras.

“The department and the board have been directed to ensure the online working of CCTV cameras from this year. This system will control copying in the exams and the board officials would be able to monitor the examination centres from the head office.

“All the private and government ITIs and polytechnic colleges have been asked to install this system, otherwise action would be taken,” Channi said.

IANS