M A I N   N E W S

UGC bans degrees by franchise
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 5
The University Grants Commission has banned grant of university degrees to private institutions through franchise.

This important declaration was made by Dr Hari Gautam, Chairman of the University Grants Commission, at an interface with Vice-Chancellors on the opening day of the 76th annual meeting of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) and the All-India Vice-Chancellors Conference at Panjab University here today.

Dr Gautam said the step had been taken to stop “marketing of education and maintain high academic standards”. Universities wishing to open recognised institutions outside their states will have to provide its updated campuses and all faculties, which would be verified by the UGC before giving recognition.

This step is very important in the wake of a number of private institutions giving degrees while showing its affiliation to universities outside their area without proper infrastructural and staff facilities.

Dr Gautam said the changed regulation came into immediate effect from August 9 when orders were issued. However, students who were enrolled by the time the circular reached the institutions could continue for the ongoing session.

The Vice-Chancellor from Indore stated that in the current scenario there were a number of universities abroad not recognised in their own countries. But “innocent” students from India were lured to join them. Dr Gautam said the UGC had made a regulation to ‘ rationalise inflow of institutions from abroad. They will now require recognition of the UGC”. A notification in this regard was expected very soon.

Participating Vice-Chancellors highlighted the problem of finances being faced by the universities. This was one of the reasons why the practice of franchising had set in.

Another important point raised by Dr Gautam was the UGC drive to create “islands of excellence” in certain identified universities of the country. As a first step as many as five universities had been identified. These are: University of Pune (Bio Infomatics), Jadavpur University (Mobile Computing), Hyderabad University (Inter-disciplinary Studies and Research) and Jawahar Lal Nehru University (Genetics and Genomics) and Madras University (Herbal Sciences).

He pointed out that as many as 76 universities had applied for the scheme. As many as 30 would be finally selected which would get a grant of Rs 30 crore for the first five years. The UGC was ready to receive fresh proposals by December 31 in case some had failed to apply for the “islands of excellence”.

The inaugural address at the opening ceremony of the conference was delivered by Lt Gen ( retd) J.F.R.Jacob, the Governor of Punjab. He said higher education had very little meaning till the time education at the primary and the middle levels was strengthened. Talk about higher education was lopsided without taking the larger societal interests into perspective. He highlighted the steps taken by the UT Administration in primary education for the deprived.

He said India had a big storehouse of knowledge in many fields. “Our traditional systems of medicine are now finding recognition the world over. Our achievements in promising fields of bio-technology, nano-technology, and human genomics were worth a mention”.

He hoped that the conference would deliberate on reworking agenda of higher education in the light of four challenges of globalisation, information revolution, quality assurance and self financing.

Prof H.P. Dixit, who heads the AIU, said the main objective of the conference should be to deliberate on ways to create and sustain a knowledge based society. There was a tendency for great plans but implementation was poor.

Quality of research had touched its nadir. The UGC should intervene and provide a list of journals which should be benchmarks to assess the quality of published works. When 95 per cent of the university budget was spent on the salaries of the staff alone, autonomy had little.

Professor Dixit said there should be an endeavour to create centres of excellence even at the graduation level.

Prof K.N. Pathak, PU Vice-Chancellor, welcoming the guests, said the talk about autonomy to teachers would have a better impact in case teachers were willing to incorporate the angle of accountability as well. Prof K.B. Powar, the Secretary-General of the AIU, also addressed the gathering.

Approximately 100 VCs from various universities of the country are participating “Technology enabled flexible education and development” is the theme of the conference which comes up for detailed discussion tomorrow.

Dr Gautam also made a reference to the UGC curriculum development programme. The UGC had updated course contents of 32 subjects which would be sent to the universities. The universities could adopt them or make needed changes and report to the UGC.

Talking about the new courses being recommended the UGC, Dr Gautam made reference to the course in “jyotirvigyan.” As many as 41 universities had applied for the course, but only 19 of them had been given permission while seven of them had started the course from this session. The UGC has also cleared courses in human consciousness, Yogic Science, cosmetology, applied philosophy and LLM courses in human rights and duty education.

Autonomy linked to VC’s leadership
PPS Gill
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 5
The extent to which a university is autonomous depends as much on the extraneous pressure a Vice-Chancellor is able to resist. Therefore, autonomy as such is there and varies from university to university. Even more important than autonomy is the way Vice-Chancellors are appointed. If the existing system of ‘’state intervention’’ was to change the way Vice-Chancellors are appointed and the latter themselves act without fear, favour and flawlessly much of the problems would not occur.

This is how the University Grants Commission Chairman, Dr Hari Gautam, looks at the question of autonomy universities have or exercise. More depends on the attitude of the Vice-Chancellor than the system of funding. It is for the universities to make their presence felt because there is complete autonomy when it comes to academics.

Therefore, much of the autonomy a university exercises depends on the performance of the staff, teaching and non-teaching, and the VC’s leadership qualities.

In so far as system and standard of higher education, the overall performance is ‘’satisfactory’’. But again standards would be determined by the degree of autonomy as well as accountability of the teachers. The two have to be complementary. Unfortunately, as in any other sphere, in the universities, too, there is a variety of teachers. He listed them as ‘’non-teaching, political, administrative, non-performing and tuition teachers’’.

The universities are dependent on the state for finance. But, in return, should interference be brooked from a financing agency as to allow it to erode the autonomy of a university? There are ways and means to find money. Money never comes in the way of autonomous functioning of a university. It is the internal audit and critical introspection of performance and achievements that determine the academic standards and degree of autonomy a university enjoys. Business and industrial resources can always be tapped for raising funds. This calls for private participation in funding universities without compromising on standards and quality of education, he stressed.

The universities have to make education and degrees relevant to the socio-economic system so that market demand is created to attract their products, the students, after they pass out.

The IGNOU (Indira Gandhi National Open University) Vice-Chancellor, Dr H P Dixit, who heads the Association of Indian Universities, believes that ‘’creating and sustaining knowledge-based society for national and global understanding and development’’ has to be the main objective of the universities. Education has to be treated as a ‘’dynamic’’ and not a ‘’static’’ force. He feels there is academic autonomy and in respect of the financial autonomy granted to the universities, 95 per cent of it goes into salaries.

He emphasises on ‘’self-learning’’. He wants obsolete courses to be done away with and new courses, socially relevant and market-oriented, introduced. The Vice-Chancellors should confine to providing direction, innovations and bringing an element of excellence. Marketing of education may be a misnomer but it has to be value and quality based.

Dr Dixit revealed that a new learning system under KU Band Technology will be shortly introduced, country-wide, to promote ‘’distance education and open university education’’ through TV. Already 2,000 sites have been short-listed. This programme, his brain-child, is part of the assignment given by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development to IGNOU to prepare ‘’education modules’’ from primary school to higher education institutes.

There was also need to develop an authentic data bank to determine mapower requirements in the coming 10 years or so. Moreover, a teacher had to be a student first to improve standards of education. It was time the universities acted as “NGOs” as well to attract funds.

The Vice-Chancellor of Arunachal University, Dr Kamal Kant Dwivedi, wanted a level-playing field for all universities when it came to judging their performance. On autonomy, he was very candid. Think of academics: no university can grudge. In framing courses, prescribing syllabi, adding or dropping courses etc. Whatever the source or agency, the Centre, states or private education, by and large, is subsidised. It is a welfare activity and a commitment of the state. It is a different matter that the presence of funding agencies leads to political interference. It is for the universities to resist succumbing to such pressures.

Dr Dwivedi heads a 17-year-old university in the North-East where first-generation students study. The university, though, in an inhospitable terrain at Itanagar is facing serious financial crunch. Its annual budget is a meagre Rs 3.7 crore. He strongly advocated ‘’performance audit’’ to ensure high academic standards and said education must be linked to employment, otherwise, it was meaningless.

Dr S. Venkateswaran is Director, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. He subscribed to the views of his colleagues that universities had academic autonomy and were themselves to ensure their autonomous status and stature was not eroded or corroded in any manner. Since his institute did not depend upon the government for funds, he, nevertheless, believed that education autonomy had to be maintained more by practice than by rule.

The universities’ responsibility was to the students, so also was that of the government. Therefore, there have to be enough scholarships so that even the poor can fulfil their aspirations for higher education. For any improvement in higher education, faculty has to be improved. There was no short-cut: a teacher is not a ‘’naukar’’ or employee.

Dr Venkateswaran firmly believed that there has to be an ‘’integrated’’ approach to education, which must improve marketability of the students, irrespective whether they study arts, humanities, science. Educational reforms emerge from change in mental attitude not from the kitty. On ‘’privatisation’’ of education, he said, the correct term is greater ‘’private participation’’ without diluting the quality of education. Therefore the need was for a coordinated approach with equal participation of business and industry, students, faculty and managements.