Varsities, faculties divided over proposed benefits of graded autonomy

A day after the government announced graded autonomy to 60 institutes, universities and faculties were divided over the proposed benefits.
 
The ministry for human resource development (MHRD) has given autonomy to some central, state, deemed and private universities, after putting these in two categories. Category-I institutes and colleges have a slight advantage over those in Category-II. For instance, those in the first don’t need the regulator, University Grants Commission’s (UGC’s) permission for signing an understanding with an academic institute abroad.
 
The categorisation was done on the basis of universities’ National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC) score. Every five years, NAAC assesses a university or college on seven parameters — curricular aspects, teaching-learning and evaluation, research, innovations and extension, infrastructure and learning resources, student support and progression. Institutes are given a score on a scale of 1.5 to 4. Those between 3.51 and 4 are considered the best and are considered first by the government for funding and support. MHRD put institutes with a score above 3.5 in the first category.
 
Officials said the autonomy did not mean central or state universities may appoint directors or faculty on their own. It  means such colleges “can prescribe their own courses, programmes of study and syllabi, and formulate new courses within the nomenclature specified by UGC”. The  difference is that these institutes would no longer have to seek UGC permission before starting a course.
 
Manoj Kumar Sinha, director of The Indian Law Institute, a deemed university, said they could now start a new course but not alter the existing ones. “For instance, we can add one or two elective subjects or entirely run a new LL.M course in cyber crime. But, we can’t cut short the duration of the LL.M course which has been prescribed by the UGC and the Bar Council,” he said.  His institute was put in the second category.
 
C Raj Kumar, founding vice-chancellor of OP Jindal Global University, called the decision historic but added this would not benefit them much, as they were a private university, registered under a state Act. “Though we don’t need UGC permission, we follow its rules and regulations. It would be great if the government talks to the states to bring amendments for lesser regulations,” he said.
 
The other private university to have been accorded autonomy, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, sees it as a major boost for its admissions process. “We were already exercising autonomy with regard to the syllabus and funding incentives for attracting quality faculty. With the autonomy, we have formal recognition,” said Tushar Shah, registrar.
 
This partial autonomy, he said, meant the university could attract international students directly, rather than follow the direct admission for students abroad (DASA) framework.
 
“As a framework, DASA helped us attract international students who were also either NRIs (non-resident Indians) or wards of Indian workers settled abroad. With the autonomy, we can directly attract foreign students.” They were, he said, planning to add 20 per cent supernumerary seats, over and above the domestic batch, for attracting international students.
 
Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) vice-president Sudhanshu Kumar, who teaches in one of the university’s colleges said: “The BJP government has been consistently reducing the UGC budget. Their plan is to gradually cut the entire funding of central universities and affiliated colleges. This is a disguised move by the government to end reservations in higher education.” DUTA, he said, would staunchly oppose the government move. Delhi University or its affiliated colleges were not included in the list of autonomous institutes.
 
A UGC member said the government would keep watch on the institutes exercising this new freedom. “Everything cannot be run from Delhi.”