Academics have expressed reservations over the special exemptions granted to government-run institutions in the new regulations released by the UGC with regard to collaborations with foreign universities.
The UGC, on Saturday, approved the regulations through which foreign universities could venture into India and enter into collaborations with Indian institutions. While this was widely seen as a backdoor measure, given the fact that opposition pressure in Parliament had kept the Foreign Universities Bill out of light, the governing body provided wide-ranging prescriptions for such kind of partnerships.
According to the regulations, only institutions having an ‘A’ rating from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) would be eligible for such an agreement. The institutions must also have at least five years of experience in providing post-graduate courses.
However, government-run institutions, both at the State and the Central levels, have been exempted from both these clauses.
Chairman of the Board of Governors at IIT-Kanpur, M Anandakrishnan, said that the regulations, which were yet to be notified, would ensure that only respectable institutions could get into such collaborations. “Fly-by-night operators would be kept away from fleecing students under the banner of foreign collaborations. This is a welcome move,” he said. That the regulations had prescribed that only the top 500 international universities could enter the country would also bar bogus foreign institutions from venturing into India, apart from cleaning up the already functioning shady collaborations in the country.
However, he opined that the clause exempting the government-run institutions from such minimum qualification, such as NAAC accreditation, should be dropped. “There is still scope for change as the norms are yet to be notified. Government institutions should not be excluded from such quality norms,” he pointed out.
S Vaidhyasubramaniam, Dean of Planning and Development of SASTRA University, said a discriminatory system between the government and private institutions would be counterproductive to any quality improvement mechanism.
Also, such collaborations should first begin with PG and doctoral programmes only and not in conventional UG programmes. “This shall address the existing faculty crisis and enhance the quality of research & PG education,” he said.
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