The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has issued a notice to the CFA Institute, asking it to shut down it’s operations in India. Almost 7000 students who have registered with the Institute, now face the prospect of missing the exams, scheduled to be held on June 3, 2007.

The CFA Institute plans to take counter legal action to ensure that this situation is resolved before then. It has always claimed that it does not require AICTE’s permission to operate in India since it is not a technical institution.
The stand-off between the CFA Institute and ICFAI has now reached a flashpoint, though the CFA Institute has sent e-mails to all students to continue with their preparations.
They have also given three options to students in case this is not resolved;
  • Cancel June ‘07 exams & get a refund of the enrollment fees,
  • Appear for the exams in Dec ‘07 (if the verdict favours the CFA institute)
  • Appear for the exams on June 3, but outside India
These venues are Kathmandu, Dhaka, Colombo, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and UAE. All related travel and accommodation expenses would have to be borne by the students.
Such ambiguities over “recognized institutes” must be removed once and for all, so that people do not spend their hard earned money on acquiring qualifications that suddenly become utterly useless. The authorities must ensure that whenever any institute wishes to offer educational programs leading to award of degrees/diplomas, they must undergo stringent checks before being allowed to do so.
There are numerous “universities” which have come up everywhere, who splash fancy full page ads in newspapers, lure gullible parents to part with their money, and then either disappear overnight or end up issuing certificates that are not worth the paper they are printed on.