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The Churn in the Higher Education Sector

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December 28, 2017

What is the issue?

  • Multiple court intervensions like in the “IDUs case” have been dictating the scheme of things in the higher education sector.
  • More clarity is needed on the regulatory framework in place, for ensuring hazzle free functioning of institutions.

What are IDUs?

  • The need for promoting and strengthening institutions that had high standards in specialised academic fields was felt.
  • Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, and Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi was some such institutions. 
  • While it was recognized that their expertise made them deserving of university states, their classification as such was not done for historical reasons.
  • Hence, the concept of ‘Institutions Deemed to be Universities” (IDU) was invented and UGC Act empowered the central government to grant this recognition to any deserving higher educational institution.

What was the problem?

  • IDU clause was for a targeted support for specific high-profile institutions.
  • But this approach was diluted by subsequent liberal conferment of IDU status.
  • The reason was that, this status meant, complete autonomy over admission norms and fees and in starting and closing study programmes.
  • Significantly, their numbers swelled from two in 1958 to 43 by 2000 and to 126 by 2009, which resulted in alarming commercialisation.
  • Consequently, a PIL was filed in 2006 alleging blatant commercialisation of education by IDUs and pleading for an effective regulatory mechanism.
  • Hence, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) constituted the Tadon committee in 2009, to review the status of all the 126 institutions.

What did the Tandon Committee report say?

  • Tandon report followed a transparent and criterion based approach for its institutional review that focused on the following parameters:
    • Broad-based and multi-disciplinary work
    • Compliance with the UGC Act and guidelines
    • Institutionalised governance structure
    • Quality and innovative teaching-learning processes
    • Meaningful research with a societal impact
    • Transparency in admissions, course structure and fees
  • In its report, Tandon committee concluded that only 38 out of the 126 universities deserved IDU status and that a remaining 44 had scope for reaching there.
  • For the 3rd category of 44 institutions, the stripping of IDU recognition and reverting them to the status of being affiliate colleges was suggested.

What were the subsequent judicial interventions?

  • While MHRD accepted the Tandon Committee report and proposed to delist the last 44 institutions in 200, the court had stayed such an action.
  • Subsequently, the court ordered the UGC to freshly evaluate all the institutions independent of the Tandon committee report.
  • This was because, the task of “coordination and maintenance of standards” in higher education was conceived to be rested solely in the UGC Act.
  • The MHRD’s argument that since it had the power to approve IDU status, it could also withdraw approval if conditions aren’t met wasn’t accepted.
  • Currently, only 1 institution of the 126, has been derecognized thus far and there is no clarity on the government’s power to crack down on erring IDUs.

What is the way ahead?

  • The UGC must engage itself with policy formulation alone and base its decisions regarding institutions on the ratings of the accreditation bodies.
  • The National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC) or any other body charged with the responsibility must be completely autonomous.
  • There is also a need to regulate state private universities as their numbers are spiralling out of control ever since the tightening of the IDU route.
  • Clarity is needed on who are the primary regulators for distance education, which is currently very ambiguous.
  • While the Tandon Committee Report has been brushed aside on technical grounds, they have flagged critical issues.
  • This calls for immediate further pondering on the regulatory structure, to weed out underperformers and incentivise good institutions.

 

Source: Indian Express

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