Govt proposes uniform accounting standards for edu institutes

Updated on: Thursday, January 19, 2012

The government proposed uniform accounting standards for educational institutes from 2013 to ensure more accountability in financial resources maintained by them.

Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) presented a report in this regard to the HRD Ministry, proposing an accrual basis of accounting for all institutes.

The uniform system will be made applicable to all central educational institutions, technical institutes affiliated to AICTE, teacher training institutes under National Council for Teachers Education and CBSE affiliated schools, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said.

The information will be made available online.

"With this step, we can analyse investments coming (to the institutes), the donations received, expenditure incurred and under which head," he told reporters.

He said they have given in principle approval to the report which will now be put in public domain to elicit views from private players and then placed before the Central Advisory Board of Education for final approval.

The Minister said they had approached ICAI on ways to bring about standardisation in the accounting system maintained by the institutes so that there is more accountability of the financial resources used by the institutes.

President of ICAI G Ramaswamy said they have proposed a high quality accounting standards to bring "good governance and transparency and disclosure relating to income, expenditure" of the institutes.

According to a HRD Ministry statement, the accounting standards will ensure transparency in revenue earned through various sources such as tuition fees and other charges, income from consultancy or from intellectual property owned by the institution.

The standards will recognise costs and revenue separately for undergraduate and post-graduate programmes and for research and teaching activities.

It will also identify if surpluses are being generated by institutes and the manner in which the surpluses are utilised or invested.

The Ministry would be organising consultations with higher educational institutions and schools on the recommendations of ICAI. Capacity building programmes will also be organised to train the staff of educational institutions.

Govt proposes uniform accounting standards for edu institutes

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