The HRD Ministry has sent a list of premier engineering institutes in the country to Kuwait authorities where thousands of Indian engineers, including IITians, are staring at possible job losses after the Gulf country decided to recognize degrees only if India's NBA approved of the courses they studied. The Public Authority for Manpower, a government body in Kuwait, had last year issued a circular asking the labour department to not give work permits to expatriate engineers unless they got no-objection certificates from the Kuwait Engineers Society.
For India, engineers were to be issued no-objection certificates only if the course had been accredited by the National Board of Accreditation (NBA). The Ministry of Human Resource Development has since then been receiving representations from Indian engineers working in Kuwait regarding this.
"A high-level Indian delegation had visited Kuwait to understand and resolve the issue and after discussion with the Kuwait authorities, it was decided to send them lists of 'Non-NBA premier institute' and 'Institutes of National Importance' which has been sent to the Indian Embassy in Kuwait for onward submission to Kuwait authorities," a senior HRD Ministry official said. The NBA accredits engineering courses while the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) accredits universities and general colleges.
The decision by Kuwait authorities has also brought degrees by prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in the invalidation scanner. "The IITs, IISc and JU have never taken accreditation from the NBA for their engineering courses. Many of the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) are yet to take accreditation for their BTech courses," the official explained.
The NBA, earlier a wing of technical education regulator All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), has been in existence since the 1990s but became an autonomous body in 2010. It has so far given accreditation to courses offered by 600 institutions among total 3,500 that teach technical courses.