The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has directed its affiliated institutes to accept and admit students with class 10 and class 12 certificates from the newly recognized Vedic board. Students who pass their 10th and 12th exams from this newly established board will receive certificates of Veda Bhushan and Veda Vibhushan, respectively.
AICTE, in a circular, stated that such students must be treated equivalent to candidates from all other regular school boards, reported The Tribune. The AICTE circular to colleges read, “You are, therefore, requested to consider Veda Bhushan and Veda Vibhushan certifications awarded to candidates by MSRVVP equivalent to 10th and 12th class certificates respectively for the academic purposes.”
The Maharshi Sandipani Rashtriya Veda Sanskrit Shiksha Board (MSRVSBB) run by the Patanjali Yogapeeth was given equivalence status for their certificates by the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), in August this year. The new status allowed to MSRVSBB students to apply for higher education in other varsities and institutes.
Only a few higher education institutions, notably 17 universities that offered Sanskrit courses, recognized the two certificates for enrolment. This included the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan (New Delhi), Karnataka Sanskrit University (Bengaluru), Shri Venkateswara Vedic University (Tirupati), and Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha (Tirupati) among others.
Following the AICTE’s latest directive, higher education institutes are expected to accept the two credentials in the future. Students from the Vedic board study Vedas and Hindu scriptures as part of their curriculum, according to information accessible on the Ved Vidya Pratishthan’s official website.
The decision, however, has led to concerns about the Vedic boards’ abilities to take up other courses at higher educational institutions. The report points out that the latest directive by AICTE comes without any comprehensive review of the Vedic syllabi to determine whether they fit the requirements for admission to engineering and other technical programmes.