New Delhi: The year 2010 is set to usher into the educational institutes a new era of accountability and transparency with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) introducing sweeping reforms in the higher education sector where the recognised colleges would have to declare online every institute's fee details, faculty components and admission related details.

Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal would soon announce these reforms where all the AICTE-recognised private colleges will have to declare their entire fees, its components, refundable portions on withdrawal of admission, number of seats per course, eligibility conditions, admission and selection process, details of teaching faculty, including their pay and qualifications, the institute's physical and academic infrastructure and syllabus outline.

The AICTE Executive Committee's plan includes putting online the entire approval/accreditation process for institutes so that the online the status of their application could be known, pertaining to approval for new courses, increasing intake of existing programmes or accreditation of their programmes.

It will also stop affiliating professional courses (B.Tech/M Tech) offered in distance mode and encourage institutes to subscribe to an internet grouping and to high-speed broad band connectivity, develop a comprehensive scheme for horizontal and vertical mobility of vocational and ITI students for the benefit of those from the working class and lower economic strata and for co-option of foreign experts on All India Boards, and consider allowing starting of dual-degree programmes of M Tech, leading to PhD.