Education regulator tightens noose on pvt varsities

SHIMLA: — Tightening noose on 17 private universities functional in the state, Himachal Pradesh Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Commission has undertaken an elaborate exercise to ensure that adequate infrastructure, qualified faculty and research facilities are available and norms and conditions of statutory bodies are complied with.

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, August 2

Tightening noose on 17 private universities functional in the state, Himachal Pradesh Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Commission has undertaken an elaborate exercise to ensure that adequate infrastructure, qualified faculty and research facilities are available and norms and conditions of statutory bodies are complied with.

The commission has set up over a dozen committees to undertake the inspection beginning tomorrow. Permission for starting courses and enrolment of students for new courses would be subject to the report of the inspection committee.

The inspection committees would look into the issues of governance and statutory compliance under the University’s Act/Statutes, Finance and Accounts and thoroughly review the level of infrastructure available for different courses and examine the adequacy for conducting all the technical courses.

The committee would also examine the adequacy of faculty in terms of prescribed strength, qualification and experience of faculty members as per regulatory norms and also seek information about enrolment, admission, examination, standards and placement to judge quality standards.

Standard of teaching in terms of syllabus, pedagogy, teaching learning processes, examination systems and evaluation process both at systemic and departmental levels and research programmes would also be under scrutiny of the committee.

The commission had approved the courses and intake of students for different courses on certain conditions. If the university was found lacking in meeting the conditions, the permission to start new courses can be withdrawn or withheld, sources in the commission said.

The 17 private universities had 20,396 students on roll as on February 28, 2015. Total enrolment in ICFAI University is 41, followed by Abhilashi University 288, Career Point University 354, IEC University 358, Maharshi Markendeshwar University 439, Indus International University 479, Eternal University 728 and Maharaja Agrasen University 805.

However, Chitkara University has the highest number of 2768 students, followed by Shoolini University 2597, Baddi University 2530, Jay Pee University 2193, Bahara University 1834, APG Shimla University 1383, Manav Bharti University 1295 and Arni University 1249.