DEEMED UNIVERSITIES - POLITY
News: New guidelines for deemed universities are ‘light but tight’, says UGC
Chairman
What is in the news?
● Recently, The Union
Education Minister has released University Grants
Commission (Institutions Deemed to be Universities) Regulations, 2023.
Key takeaways from the news:
● New
guidelines will replace the UGC
(Institutions Deemed to be Universities) Regulations, 2019.
● The
regulations will facilitate creation of many more quality-focused universities
deemed to be universities in an objective and transparent manner.
● The
regulations were in tune with the National Education Policy of 2020.
● Under
the 2019 guidelines, the higher education institutions having “existence for
not less than 20 years” were eligible for applying for the status.
● However,
the revised guidelines have now replaced it with multi-disciplinarity, NAAC
grading, NIRF ranking
and NBA grading.
● The eligibility criteria
to apply for deemed to be university status:
○ NAAC ‘A’ grade
with at least a 3.01 CGPA for three
consecutive cycles.
○ NBA accreditation for
two third of eligible programmes for three consecutive cycles.
○ Should
be in the top 50 of any specific category of National Institutional Ranking
Framework for the last three years continuously
○ top 100 of overall NIRF
Ranking for the last three years continuously.
University Grants Commission:
● In
1952, the Union Government decided that all cases pertaining to the allocation
of grants-in-aid from public funds to the Central Universities and other
Universities and Institutions of higher learning might be referred to the
University Grants Commission.
● Consequently,
the University Grants Commission (UGC) was formally inaugurated by the late
Shri Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the
then Minister of Education, Natural Resources and Scientific Research on 28
December 1953.
● The
UGC, however, was formally established only in November 1956 as a statutory body of the Government of India through an Act
of Parliament called University Grants
Commission Act for the coordination, determination, and maintenance of standards
of university education in India.
● It
functions under the Ministry of
education.
● Headquarters: New Delhi.