Oct 30 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

UGC's panel on 7 deemed univs overlooks own rules

Akshaya Mukul

New Delhi:





When the Supreme Court ordered inspection of seven deemed universities, it had little clue how the University Grants Commission will dilute the process by disregarding its own rules.UGC's inspection committee is headed by its secretary JS Sandhu and consists of OP Kalra of University College of Medical Sciences, Ramesh Dadich of ICSSR, SP Goyal, joint secretary, HRD ministry and Sunita Siwach, a UGC official.
This has happened despite UGC regulation of 2009 setting specific norms how to constitute an inspection committee to ascertain the financial needs of a university or its standard of teaching, examination and research, or for both. The regulation says the committee should consist of two serving or retired vice-chancellors of any central or state university; not less than three and not more than five members, at least one a woman; from amongst professors having special knowledge of the courses being conducted in the university; one member from each of the councils with jurisdiction over the courses in the university and one member from National Academic and Accreditation Council. The regulation also says the committee should be headed by one of the two VCs.
HRD ministry sources justified the constitution of the committee on the ground that it is not a regular inspection committee but could not answer how HRD and UGC officials could be part of it.
It is not only the constitution of the inspection committee that is attracting criticism, now it has come out that the UGC committee that reviewed 41 deemed universities had actually put eight of them in the list to be disqualified as deemed university. But in the last minute, one university from Uttar Pradesh was moved out of the list.

Sep 26 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

SC to UGC: Carry out physical verification of deemed univs

New Delhi TIMES NEWS NETWORK





The Supreme Court on Thursday smelt a rat in University Grants Commission's decision to submit to the Centre a report on 41 deemed universities facing de-recognition, after taking stock of their infrastructure and teaching faculty strength through video presentation.A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Vikramjit Sen had a few questions for additional solicitor general Maninder Singh, who appeared for UGC. “Why should you avoid physical inspection?
These days, photographs can be dangerous... You do not purchase a house by seeing its photograph.
“Are you trying to tell us that you will analyse these institutions using photographs? We are not accepting this concept of inspection through video or photographs. Do not expect us to digest that there is no difference between 2009 inspection and 2014 inspection.“
The bench became suspicious after it was informed by one of the 41 institutions that UGC's expert committee had called for video presentations and did not conduct on-the-spot inspection as mandated by clause 4.16 of the UGC Regulations 2010.
Bharath Institute for Higher Education and Research, through senior advocate Harish Salve, said it was willing for a fresh physical inspection. The bench ordered UGC to inspect the institution and wondered why a uniform order could not be passed for all 41 institutions.
UGC had last inspected the 41 deemed universities in November 2009 following the P N Tandon Committee report classifying them as “unfit“ to be declared deemed universities.
Maninder Singh informed the court that UGC decided to evaluate the merit of each institution as it had to submit its report to the Centre by September 30.
The bench told UGC that in all its earlier orders, the commission had claimed no objection for fresh physical inspection. Singh said UGC even now had no objection to fresh physical verification of the deemed universities blacklisted by the Tandon panel.
Some of the institutions objected to fresh physical inspection and asked the court to restrict its order to institutions desirous of reinspection. “Why should you feel shy of physical verification,“ said the bench on Friday .

UGC recommends blacklisting 7 Deemed Universities, 34 get clean chit 

The UGC committee set up to review 41 ‘C’ category deemed universities has recommended the disqualification of seven of them. The committee set up under UGC vice-chairman H Devraj has, however, given a clean chit to the remaining 37 deemed universities that were blacklisted by a government report in 2009.

The report of the committee was accepted by the UGC full commission at a meeting held in New Delhi on Monday. According to the report, only 7 of the entire list of deemed varsities originally blacklisted have been found inadequate on specified standards. Accordingly, the union Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry may serve them a show cause notice before denotification, the report recommended.

The names of the universities placed in the ‘C’ category, however, have not been disclosed and the report has also not been shown to UGC members. Vice-chairperson H Devaraj only read out the operative portion, leading to protest by one member who asked how the commission could claim that the report had been accepted when not all members had even seen it.

The committee was set up under the orders of the Supreme Court which had asked it to examine three earlier reports on deemed universities. The Tandon Committee in 2009 had categorised them into three and 41 were found unfit to continue as deemed universities.

The report will now be sent to the HRD ministry which is expected to submit it to the SC on September 30, 2014 when the issue comes up for hearing.

- See more at: http://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/2014/09/ugc-recommends-blacklisting-7-deemed-universities-34-get-clean-chit/#sthash.7aw42M5p.dpuf

Sep 08 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Panel finds most deemed varsities don't fulfil criteria

Akshaya Mukul

New Delhi





A high-powered committee set up at the behest of the Supreme Court to look into 41 `C' category deemed universities has found that majority of them still do not fulfil the criteria needed to become deemed university .“It is likely that around 10 or so have been found fit to be upgraded to become deemed university . Rest of them can exist as educational institutions affiliated to universities. Basically , classification of `C' category institutions has been done in which a few pass the test of becoming deemed, a few lag behind on certain criteria and others have been found totally unfit,“ a source said, In 2009, the Tandon committee, while reviewing deemed universities, had put 44 of them under the `C' category and declared them unfit to be a university . These institutions went to the Supreme Court and the matter is being heard. In January ,a new committee was set up by UGC to assess `C' grade universities. UGC will discuss the new committee report on September 22 and 23.
Sources said the new committee headed by H Devaraj, vice-chairperson of UGC, after hearing 41 deemed universities extensively in July , raised several questions about the manner in which deemed university status was granted. Since the committee was also asked to examine other reports on deemed universities, namely one set up by UGC in 2009, Tandon Com mittee and Committee of Officers, it found many flaws.
One, how come many institutions got notified as deemed university on certain conditions. “There is no provision for conditional notification in the UGC Act. If some of the deemed universities had conditional status, did UGC or HRD ministry check if conditions were fulfilled after a certain period. Also, how come many of them with conditional status made it to the `A' category (high performing) of Tandon Committee,“ asked a member of the committee.
He also asked how deemed university status was given to one college which brought its sister institutions under its ambit without getting them separately assessed. The new committee also pointed out serious discrepancy in upgrading eight `B' category institutions to `A' category .
The report was written in the last days of August as Amita Sharma, additional secretary in HRD ministry and a member of the committee, was retiring. Sharma is being brought back as advisor in the HRD ministry .