2014-08-31

I hope reader of my blog remember my earlier article about Avagmah.

Validity of Avagmah online school, its MBA programme and other courses are not recognized and invalid

The link is as follows:

http://blog.simplycareer.net/2014/08/validityavagmahmbapgdm.html

There I had indicated that I am going to write an article about edukart.com too. Perhaps I am one of the few who dared to write about edukart.

Well, there is big tall claims about edukart and its founder  Ishan Gupta and Mayank Gupta. It will be wrong if I comment on their job, idea and success but edukart is not a unique idea and it is sheer copy of the "kart" culture in India dervied from original Flipkart.. so we have many kart now, lenskart. edukart, collegekart, healthkart, watchkart, familykart, ezeekart, mybabykart, bagskart and so on.

I think out of all these kart, edukart is most profitable business with least investment as hardly any inventory involves.

How edukart does the business

There is no difference between thousands shop spread all over India selling distance education degrees. The difference is- this time edukart is authorised by these universities by violating various guideline from UGC, state government, DEB and their own Act which is the basis of their existence is there.

Edukart is just an agent. It has (probably) signed agreement with this agreement which is if you see through the angle of The Contract Act is a vid Contract (if there is any provision in the contract is contrary to any existing law, the contract itself is invalid/ void).

Edukart is a business with zero inventory

If you look at any other e-commerce site including Flipkart, they have to take huge risk. They have to maintain physical stock of the product (if they are not selling through a third party) and huge risk if not sold. For edukart there is zero physical inventory. It is a mastermind of b school graduates and I must salute them for it. University's admission seats (for distance education, by violating the norms) are sold and took commission as a commission agent. I think it would have been much better if they would have offered these distance learning institutes hunger for money to offer their services to establish online support, enhancing web learning experience, developing curriculum of these institutes based on their experience from IIM, IIT and Stanford. I am sure, by this way, they would have taken Indian education system specially online, distance, open learning into new height. But it was very difficult as these universities would have not paid money for something like that and convincing them would have been difficult. Then they must have decided, why not to become their agent and sell these degrees. An easier, viable business model to attract venture capitalist, investors and easy to sell.

India' huge market for MBA and engineering degrees

I am great admirer of my present boss and mentor. Being in a top management position and with lot of rich experience of education system, politics, geography, business, legal framework and the system, he once quoted during one of our discussion- "Do you know why we Indian are good in software, because we are expert in manipulation". No doubt, I fully agree to this. We attempt and succeed to manipulate everything. We do not do things on time and do not take enough precaution and do things right and then we search for a short cut. Today, to get success one need a degree and the most valued degree (as people assume but reality is different) are engineering degrees and MBAs. So few handful state universities and many private and deemed universities took advantage of this. Without infrastructure and without any proper quality, they started to offer the courses in other word, started to sell these degrees. You may may go through my various articles to find out more about them. If you see, in all those cases, finally students only suffered. These universities started to offer "quick degree" "short degree", "one sitting degree", "instant degree" and all of them were either fake offered by universities through their agent. I get many query, people constantly asking "agent said that degree is verifiable and I cannot wait 3 years to do degree, should I go ahead?".

It is different matter to discuss whether HR and organisation should stick to qualifications? Should a degree be determiner of one's ability? Of course not. The education just becomes a way of elimination of applicants. A candidate without qualification but a good performer cannot be always the case, it will be always an exception.

HR as a business partner need to take lot of care

HR's responsibility is not just filling the position. HR must eliminate any such incompetent people who want to deceive organisation by buying a fake degree. A candidate should have guts to say that he does not have degree and if HR really need it, he can get a fake one for which he has not appeared for exam and not followed the process. Somebody shared his experience about one of his friend how he bought fake degrees including MBA and when HR doubted his credentials, he asked him to spell out his subjects in his MBA, he did not have any clue. Unfortunately, we HR take such background screening test when such candidates do no perform as expected.

Leaving all these discussion aside, I am focussing again back on Edukart and I leave it on my readers to decide on whether they should opt Edukart or not.

Few clarifications

1. Edukart is illegal official agents of many universities to whom UGC and law has strictly prohibited.

2. I have not found Edukart in the scam of selling degree by violating norms, it is just facilitating admission in those universities.

3. Edukart is neither an institute nor a university and as specified it is just a mediator facilitating admission and not awarding any qualification by its own.

Courses

It offers various courses but most prominent is- hot cake MBA

Distance cum online MBA from

KSOU

Annamalai University

Tamil nadu Open University

KSOU

Bharati Vidyapeeth

Shiats Deemed University

Venkateshwara Open University

University of Petroleum and Energy Studies

University of St. Mark and St. John- UK

Distance PGDM from:

Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies

Symbiosis University

National Institute of Management and Technology, Ghaziabad

Graduate School of Business administration, Noida

All India Management Association (AIMA)

University of PEtroleum and Energy Studies

MCA, M.Sc. IT

Above mentioned universities

Rajasthan Vidyapeeth

BBA/BCA/ BA etc

Above mentioned universities and

Northwest Universities

So here comes big truth

First of all, its claim that all the courses are UGC approved are completely misleading and wrong.

Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu Open University, KSOU all are state universities and they cannot offer any course beyond the territory jurisdiction and beyond their state in any case.

Please refer:

UGC has issued fresh guideline on territorial jurisdiction of universities - See more at: http://blog.simplycareer.net/2013/06/ugc-has-issued-fresh-guideline-on.html#sthash.FgnfDAzq.dpuf

Rajasthan Vidyapeeth:

Rajasthan Vidyapeeth lost its recognition from DEC in 2012 due to its degree selling scams and violating territorial jurisdiction, A deemed university in any case cannot appoint a franchisee, cannot offer course outside its campus. Then how edukart is claiming that the degree has AICTE approval? It is just selling its degrees.

Distance PGDM are not equivalent to MBA

AIU grants equivalence to only full time PGDM. Distance PGDM are not equivalent to MBA. NMIMS has clearly replied to my mail that their own PGDM is useless for themselves, for their research programme.

Here is the reply

Jigna Patel <Jigna.Patel@nmims.edu>

25/04/2013







to me

This is a Distance learning prog of NMIMS.

Our programs are approved by the Joint committee of UGC-AICTE-DEC

We do not allow to pursue Ph.D after completing 2 yrs PG

Thanks.

Regards,

Jigna Patel

Assistant Registrar

NMIMS Global Access – School for Continuing Education

You may read following article for your reference

Question and answer on distance PG diploma of NMIMS - See more at: http://blog.simplycareer.net/2013/11/nmimsdistancepgdbaqnada.html

Another lie of Edukart is it is saying PGDM from Symbiosis University. Symbiosis University does not offer any distance programme. It is offered through Symbiosis centre for Distance Learning (SCDL) which is using the brand Symbiosis International University but symbiosis does not award any programme

You may read it as follows:

Are you thinking that you got a Symbiosis University degree from SCDL?- Think again about it- you are cheated
http://blog.simplycareer.net/2013/05/are-you-thinking-that-you-got-symbiosis.html

Clarity of Distance Learning PGDBA, PGDHRM and 1/2 years PG Management Programme (Distance mode) - See more at: http://blog.simplycareer.net/2012/05/clarity-of-distance-learning-pgdba.html#sthash.7oCORIMu.dpuf
http://blog.simplycareer.net/2012/05/clarity-of-distance-learning-pgdba.html

People should not opt MBA/ PG Courses from these institutes (Distance mode) - See more at: http://blog.simplycareer.net/2011/08/people-should-not-opt-mba-pg-courses.html#sthash.MWgL41lO.dpuf

Venkateshwara Open University

This is a private university and although it has added word "Open" as per the reply got from UGC, although a private university has named itself as an open, it cannot offer courses outside its campus and cannot open centre. Venkateshwara Open University does not have UGC DEB approval.

I hope above post will open your eyes. I do not understand why Edukart need to lie upto this extent?

Degree from foreign universities are not valid

AIU regulates and grants equivalence of foreign degree and as per AIU a foreign degree in India is valid only in following case:

1. The said universities have approval from the respective country's government.

2. The said courses from said university should be offered from the university's campus of its origin country. So if it is a university in UK, the students must have obtained the courses from the campus of the university from UK only.

3. The course must be full time and from the origin county only.

4. The programme should not be distance, online, off campus, collaborative (except UGC approved collaborative programme).

Now let us look at edukart. They have not made any such declaration on its website. One of the Edukart's founder has studied at US and he must be aware that doing business with such misleading statement in US could have cost them a stringent lawsuit and penalty. In India it is easy to break law and make money. In this case, both northwest university and  University of St. Mark and St. John degrees are invalid in India (but they are valid in UK)

A big false, the fee is cheapest and affordable

Edukart charge you Rs. 25000 as an agent just to process your forms to the university? (and you have to pay separately to the university. Do you want to pay so much fee (Rs. 25000 to handle your application process)? It is similar of Avagmah. Decision is yours.

Its certificate courses

It charges for certificate courses but if you search over internet, you will find similar and better courses under MOOC free of cost. I have listed few of them courses in my blog and thats too from top of the world class universities. Then why to pay money?

Free MOOC Psychology course and certificate (online course on psychology) from top global institutes - See more at: http://blog.simplycareer.net/2014/06/moocpsychologycourse.html#sthash.3cG40tMO.dpuf

Must to be attended MOOC courses in management, teaching, training, ICT and behavioural science - See more at: http://blog.simplycareer.net/2014/08/mustattendfreecoursesonlinefree.html#sthash.2zue7gCU.dpuf

Free certificate MOOC online courses on communication skills - See more at: http://blog.simplycareer.net/2013/11/mooccommunicationcoursenov.html#sthash.dssrJXX1.dpuf

I hope this has provided clarity to you.

Now, you must have a puzzling questions:

1. I am working in private sector, why should I worry about approval?

My dear friend, if you are not worried about recognition, then buy 6 months, 3 months fake degree, why you want to do it from a university only?

The fact is, any MBA does not work.

Please read following article to understand

http://blog.simplycareer.net/2014/07/why-any-mba-does-not-work-and-you.html

2. The Universities are UGC approved then why their degrees are not?

UGC regulates distance education now and there is clear mandate, for distance education all institutes have to follow guideline and offer course within their territorial jurisdiction. It has been done in order to maintain quality (of course on paper only).

Here is review from the people on mouthshut.com

EduKart = People exploitation

Feb 01, 2014 05:33 PM

Service & Support:

Information Depth:

Content Timeliness:

Design/Usability: <span class="read-barnone" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip:

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