Pvt varsities aplenty, student strength scanty

Ambika Sharma

Notwithstanding the fact that there are 17 private universities in the state (10 in Solan district alone), the quality of education imparted by these has put a question mark on their credibility. 

The move to open doors to private players has failed to attain the desired result, as a number of students continue to take admissions to private universities in neighbouring states.

Barring three private universities — JP University, Shoolini University and Chitkara University — none have found a place in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) released by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development released recently. 

Key parameters such as teaching, learning and resources, research and professional practice, graduation outcome, outreach and inclusivity and perception are taken into account while assessing the universities.

While JP University continues to lead in private engineering universities of the state by attaining the 121st ranking, the performance of the government-run institutes was much better with IIT Mandi attaining the 44th rank in the overall list of institutes nationwide. 

Dr YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, also figures at the 80th position in the NIRF among the universities nationally though its ranking has taken a dip from 51st position attained by it two years ago. Chaudhary Sarwan Kumar HP Krishi Vishvavidyalaya ranked between 101 and 150 by the NIRF.

Shoolini University’s management school figures at the 60th rank nationally, while its pharmacy college figures at the 39th position.

Notably, none of the law colleges have found any ranking in the HRD ministry’s level-ranking despite these colleges being run for several years now.

Student strength constantly declining

Student strength is constantly declining in a majority of the universities and they are finding it difficult to sustain.

Several universities in the industrial area of Baddi were suffering especially because they failed to get adequate admissions for its various courses in the past several years.

Sample this: In 2016-17, as many as 8,749 students were enrolled in all 17 private universities of the state, which included 2,944 students in engineering and 5,805 in other courses. Engineering seats comprised major chunk of students enrolled as the course fetches maximum fee.

With a steep decline in the placements in the engineering stream, the enrolment has taken a severe beating and the civil, electronic and biotechnology streams have been specially hit in the last about two years. 

Out of the 6,596 engineering seats in 2017-18, only 2,185 were filled up in these 17 universities , while in other courses as against the 14,186 seats approved, more than half remained unfulfilled and barely 6,507 students were enrolled, while 7,679 remained unfilled. In some universities such as IEC Baddi and ICFAI Baddi, only 67 students each were enrolled in 2017-18 and of the 595 engineering seats, merely eight were filled up.

Only three universities managed to enrol a sizeable number of students in the engineering stream, which included APG University Shimla, Chitkara University, Baddi, and Jay Pee University, Waknaghat, while a majority of the seats remained vacant in other universities.

Notably, as per the enrolment of 2017-18, at least eight universities had a student strength of less than 500 with MM University in Solan enrolling merely 166 students, while Indus International University, Una, could only admit 381 students.

Vice-Chancellor, Shoolini University, Prof PK Khosla, while enlisting their special efforts, said their university was already among the top-five patent filers in the country and was ahead of many renowned universities in annual filing of patents. The total number of patents filed by its faculty and students so far is 325.

Its engineering department was recently ranked among the top-30 private universities of the country by ELETS rankings 2019.

He said: “Strenuous efforts have led to almost 100 per cent placements in several disciplines even as top Indian and multi-national companies (MNCs) are sending their teams to pick up talent. The average packages offered range from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh per annum. The highest package of Rs 15 lakh CTC has been bagged by our student Aashish Saini from the MNC Hilti.”

He said the university had also signed MoUs with about 250 universities worldwide and over 50 of its students were currently studying in universities abroad as part of the student-exchange programme. Apart from this, a substantial number of foreign students are also studying in the university and many students studying abroad are able to bag fully funded post-doctorate scholarships for further studies abroad.

A campus radio and television studio has been set up under the journalism and mass communication department, which runs a bachelor’s course and a post-graduate diploma course in journalism.

Virender Singh Kanwar, Vice-Chancellor, Chitkara University, while elaborating on the special initiatives, said: “We have collaborated with a large number of reputed foreign universities. A number of reputed companies have set up laboratories on the campus to give a boost to research activities by supplying state-of-the-art equipment for best hands-on classroom training.” 

“The university works rigorously to equip our graduates with skills that enable them not only to apply the knowledge they have gained during their programme of study, but also to have an inquisitive mind, possess critical thinking skills, and be always on the lookout for creative solutions to the tasks at hand. Beyond a track record of 90 per cent campus placements, the university thrives on balanced career progression of its students through various articulation and student-exchange programmes for higher studies; an IPR cell sponsored by the HP State Council of Science Technology and Environment, Shimla, is being set up for developing the research acumen of students and an in-house incubation centre. Start-ups are established to develop entrepreneurial spirit among aspiring students,” he said.

Terming their research-based initiatives as the key towards maintaining high standards, Vinod Kumar, Vice-Chancellor, Jay Pee University, said: “We have been granted 5 patents, while 14 more have been filed. More than 2,900 research publications, 63 books and 155 book chapters have been published by students, which speaks volumes about the research underway at the university. Over 65 per cent of the total JUIT research publications are internationally well-recognised and the university has been awarded 180 Ph.Ds in its core areas of academic research. 

Credibility hit

The credibility of some private universities has been severally hit with as many as 168 complaints of fake degrees being received by the HP Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Commission, thus putting a question mark over the quality of education being imparted by them.  

These complaints were forwarded by the Department of Higher Education to the commission for the verification of these degrees. A majority of the degrees (PhD, pharmacy, BSc, MSc and BA) pertain to Maharashtra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Those, who got the degrees, are working in public and private sectors.

The commission has been issuing notices to the private university since 2017 to either own up these degrees if they had been issued by them or file an FIR against such individuals as these degrees used the university logo and same paper.

Sources said in one case, a person, who had obtained a PhD degree from a private university, was working as a Vice-Chancellor of a university in Maharashtra, while in another case, a woman had obtained the job of an Assistant Public Relations Officer in Haryana on the basis of this university degree. As many as three cases pertain to PhD degrees.

With the university failing to either own up the degrees or registering FIRs, barring one case, the working of this private university has come under scanner. Sources said the university had failed to submit a complete report pertaining to all 168 cases and only a scattered report had been submitted.

“Little could be done to check the system despite complaints of such grave nature coming to the fore. This was creating doubts in students about the quality of education being imparted here and they preferred opting for universities in the neighbouring states, thus leaving sizeable seats vacant in Himachal,” observed a senior official of a private university. 

“Some private universities were acting like commercial shops and they were demanding new courses with high student intake without having matching staff and infrastructure. The aim was just to earn money and imparting quality education was low on their agenda. Any course which attracted more students, including law, was being added to the list of courses year after year and even courses such as nursing, which were being run by small institutes, were also being run by private universities,” an official of the HP Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Commission observed.

What CAG report of 2016-17 says...

• The state of affairs in private universities was aptly projected by the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) report of 2016-17 in its performance audit report. It had stated that the state government had given nod to the opening of 17 private universities in the state without assessing the need and 10 universities were opened in Solan district alone, including four in one panchayat. Applications were accepted and considered “as and when received from private parties to establish universities at a location of their choice”.
• CAG had also pointed out that the HP Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Commission (HPPEIRC) was understaffed and failed to hold regular inspections and check irregularities. It had further stated that there was no system of inviting applications from interested private parties and selecting best applicants for the establishment of private universities in identified regions and fields of study. The state government had not devised any policy for ensuring need-based establishment of private universities.
• The report had also pointed out that there was lack of transparency, objectivity and fairness in considering applications and that the prescribed guidelines were not adhered to as “no objective or quantifiable criteria/ benchmarks/ norms were prescribed for the assessment of source of finance, experience of the sponsoring body in the fields of teaching and research and the potentiality of the proposed courses keeping in view the need and demand. Out of 17 private universities, 15 did not have adequate faculty possessing minimum qualifications, especially at the level of professor and associate professor and there was notable shortage of professors (38 per cent) and associate professors (61 per cent) in these.
• Further, only three universities secured an accreditation from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council till March till 2017, while 10 universities, due for NAAC accreditation, had not secured it by then. “The Regulatory Commission had  approved 1,394 courses in private universities during 2011-17 without conducting inspections to ascertain the availability of infrastructure and staff and even the fee approved by the state was increased without any justification or considering costing elements,’’ the report further stated. 
• It was pointed out that three universities — Bahra, Chitkara and Jaypee Univeristy of Information Technology — had increased the fee of BTech course by 21 per cent, 23 per cent and 58 per cent in 2017-18, respectively, as compared to the previous year without justification. During test checks, CAG found that Baddi University, Jaypee University and Shoolini University of Biotechnology and Management Sciences, had charged Rs 4.58 crore on the account of development charges in 2016-17, in violation of the High Court directive.
• The placement record of some universities was poor and APG University, Chitkara University, Eternal University and Jaypee University had placed over 60 per cent of their students, while Arni University and Manav Bharti University could not place even 15 per cent of its students. A total of 352 candidates were enrolled for doctorate in only four out of the nine test-checked private universities, including the maximum number of 298 students in Shoolini university.
• CAG also took cognisance of the non-disclosure of information on the website by private universities. It said the order passed by the Regulatory Commission in April 2016 made it mandatory for all private universities to make disclosures on their respective websites regarding the number of students eligible for getting degrees, course-wise degrees, list of candidates passed, but none of the universities complied with the order.

Officialspeak

"Some private universities were acting like commercial shops and they were demanding new courses with high student intake without having matching staff and infrastructure. The aim was just to earn money and imparting quality education was low on their agenda. Any course which attracted more students, including law, was being added to the list of courses year after year and even courses such as nursing, which were being run by small institutes, were also being run by private universities." — An official of HPPEIRC

"Little can be done to check the system despite complaints of such grave nature coming to the fore. This is creating doubts in students about the quality of education being imparted here and they prefer opting for universities in the neighbouring states, thus leaving sizeable seats vacant in Himachal." — A senior official of a private university