Top varsities may get more autonomy
Universities
performing poorly likely to face funding cuts
New Delhi: The human resource development ministry
is introducing a carrot and stick approach under which the performing
universities will get greater autonomy and poor performers will get their
funding cut. To implement the initiative, the ministry will divide the universities
into three categories based on their performance on several parameters
including the teaching-learning environment, research and industry income. “We
are looking to classify universities into three categories and this is not
based on NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council) grades,” HRD
minister Prakash Javadekar said.
India has currently 759 universities
including 47 central universities, 350 state-run universities, 239 private
universities and 123 deemed-to-be universities. At least 37,000 colleges are
affiliated to these institutions and it is believed that the performance of a
university impacts the education outcome of a majority of the affiliated
collages. Most of these universities are far from being well run and none of them
make it to the top 200 universities list in global rankings. “What we are
trying is to improve the quality and will do what is required to improve the
education outcome,” Javadekar said.
