In a major decision, the HRD Ministry on Monday gave the go ahead to top autonomous colleges of the country the power to confer degrees, just like recognised universities do it presently.
While there are 441 such institutions, the move is said to bring more colleges and elite institutions of the country in the ambit and free them from the “regular interferences” of the universities. To begin with, only 45 of the lot have been given the special powers to award the degrees at all levels.
Technically, the autonomous colleges enjoy the freedom to determine and prescribe their own courses of study and syllabi, and restructure and redesign the courses to suit local needs.
Of the 441 autonomous colleges in 84 universities and 21 States, 45 have been awarded the status of centre of potential excellence (CPE) with Grade A from NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council).
The maximum number of autonomous colleges is in Tamil Nadu (155) followed by 73 in Andhra Pradesh, 49 in Karnataka, 37 in Odisha, 35 in Madhya Pradesh, 10 in Chhattisgarh, five in Jharkhand and four in Punjab, among others.
“While autonomous colleges have been given certain academic autonomy, they did not have the powers to award degrees. Degrees were awarded from the university they were affiliated to. But now they will be at par with a university and would be able to award the degrees,” said a top HRD Ministry official. These colleges will be converted into Universities by the end of XII Plan. Some specific problems faced by the autonomous colleges falling under universities were that they were supposed to function within existing statutes and regulations of the particular varsity and required to follow same procedure adopted by other affiliated colleges giving them no scope to explore in higher education system. The university issued provisional degree certificates only after the ledger marks were submitted by all the affiliated colleges which caused inordinate delay.
So far, autonomous colleges were granted a fixed amount of `20 lakh per annum as UGC funding routed through the State Education Department. But with reports that this channel was hampering their overall development, the colleges pressed for direct disbursement of funds from UGC and not through the State Governments and this has been accepted, said the officials. The meeting was chaired by Higher Education Secretary Ashok Thakur in the absence of the HRD Minister MM Pallam Raju.
“The UGC Act will be suitably amended to enable these colleges to award degrees. The UGC Standing Advisory Committee on Autonomous Colleges under the Chair of Prof Syed Hasnain will finalise its recommendations within two months, including draft regulations for autonomous colleges,” added the official. The initiative comes in the backdrop of the Government clearing the ambitious Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) programme last week, which seeks to convert autonomous colleges into State universities.