The following is the text of the email that Bishnujee has sent to the Ministry of HRD. Love the work he is doing for AeSI folks.
Dear Prof R A Yadav,
S incere compliments of the day.I wanted to draw your kind attention that AICTE & Ministry of HRD need to take careful about the Degrees & Diploma issued by Universities & Professional Institutions. Serious problems have been faced by Applicants to US Immigrant Visa where there applications has been rejected by USCIS Immigration Officers challenging the terminology used by Indian Institutions. I would be glad if you people can kindly look into this issue and recommend changes.In recent times cases has increased at a rapid pace and the matter has been referred to me where I had to personally intervene with USCIS Immigration Officers regarding such issues.These issues can be very well taken care of by Academic regulating bodies like AICTE,Ministry of HRD & others.
There are certain Professional Institutions like Institution of Engineers (India),Aeronautical Society of India ,IETE(India),IME (India) who award there Sec A & B Qualifications which is recognised by Govt of India at par with BE/BTech from Indian University.These qualifications has been under scrutiny of US Immigration officers as they want to check whether these Professional Membership Qualification are indeed Degree Qualification since they have been using the term Section A & B on there completion certificate and it doesn't state anywhere on the same that it is Degree certificate.Only IME (India) among these Professional Institution has been issuing Certificate with term Degree in Mechanical Engineering. Rest all of them have been issuing under there own terminology like Completion certificate or Associate/Graduate Membership certificate. This has led to plenty of Graduates from such Institution being denied Immigrant Visa.
I have been discussing with USCIS on individual case basis ,but I would be glad if this terminology issue is taken care of by regulating bodies from India,so that there Graduates don't face such problem in Foreign nations.
Professional Membership Institutions need to be very clear regarding there professional Exams which allows them to award Degree certificate or equivalent,since mixing of Membership title with Educational Qualification Title can lead to serious issues. For Example: Any Commercial Pilot License may be Graduate Member of Aeronautical Society of India and higher membership Grade. So he cannot be considered as Professional Degree as per rule.
That's why they need to be careful with Professional Examination Qualification title. Only IME (India) has so far been issuing terminology " Degree in Mechanical Engineering" which looks better than other terminology.But there need to be parity between terminology used by these Institution to avoid discomfort to there Graduate Engineers.
Your help in this regard would be very much appreciated.
Kind regards
Bishnujee Singh
Hope the AeSI and the concerned person respond and do the needful for this issue.
