In a major decision in higher education sector, the Centre on Tuesday announced full autonomy to 52 institutions. These institutions can now decide their admission procedure, fee structure and curriculum on their own without the interference of parent university.
HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said that the university watchdog — University Grants Commission (UGC) — has granted full autonomy to 52 higher educational institutions (HEIs), including five Central and 21 State universities, which maintained high standards over the years. The Central universities are Jawaharlal Nehru University, Hyderabad University, Banaras Hindu University, Aligarh Muslim University and The English and Foreign language University in Telangana.
“Five Central universities, 21 State universities, 26 private universities besides 10 other colleges have been granted graded autonomy under the Autonomous Colleges Regulation,” Javadekar announced the significant decision at a hurriedly called Press conference ahead of the new academic session.
The institutions granted full autonomy will be free to decide their admission procedure, fee structure and curriculum. Javadekar said that the decision has been taken in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision towards liberalised regulatory regime and empower all institutions which in near future can be self reliant.
The grading was awarded to the institutions and universities as per National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) survey which eavaluated all under various specified category. The NAAC is an organisation that assesses and accredits higher education Institutions in India and is funded by UGC.
“Today is a historic day in the higher education system of the country. Institutions with greater autonomy as per the norms can do everything on their own and need not rush to UGC always. The only thing is that such institutions will have to award the degrees under the university they belong to. Not only this, institutions under the category of greater autonomy will also able to hire foreign faculties with competitive global remuneration and also admit foreign students. They can collaborate for their academic needs with foreign institutions or universities,” Javadekar said.
On the occasion, the HRD Minister reminded that the Centre has already paved a way through an Act of Parliament to grant autonomy to the chain of IIMs. “Our primary aim is to bring our top institutions and universities at global standards. Currently, 116 intuitions from India have applied to seek a global recognition which will further give boost to the higher education standards,” Javadekar shared.
While the State universities include Jadavpur University, National law University (Delhi), Jammu University, Punjab University, Kurukshetra University, Anna University and Madras University, two private universities -- OP Jindal in Haryana and Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University - figure in the UGC Graded Autonomy list announced by the Centre.
There are 24 deemed universities viz. Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Symbiosis, DY Patil University, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Odisha, Vellore Institute of Technology and Shiksha O Anushandan, Odisha in the Graded autonomy list.