Accreditation of private universities
Monday, 27 October 2008
Fahmida Akhter
A high-powered committee of the University Grants Commission (UGC) that went to work to ascertain the performance of private universities in 2003, gave a large number of them a period of five years to fulfill certain criteria to maintain their licences. A similar work has reportedly re-started recently. Show cause notices have, thus, been issued, according to reports in some sections of media, against thirteen of them afresh for not meeting conditions pledged in 2003. Ten more are likely to get similar notices from the University Grants Commission (UGC), fairly soon. The UGC had set deadlines to be met by these institutions in respect of shifting to their own campuses from hired buildings and meeting other standards to provide truly quality education.
The high costs of the private universities have meant that these remain off-limits for many students who desire higher education. Thus, these could not be the alternative to many young ones who calculated that the private institutions would come to their rescue in a situation where the public universities could offer them no seats. Qualitatively too, except a few private universities, the teaching standard, the academic atmosphere and the worth of the degrees of the others are in doubt. But this lack of quality has not prevented them from charging relatively very high fees compared to the public universities.
Almost all of the private universities lack the characteristics of real campuses. Housed on rented buildings, these appear more like coaching centres than real universities that have varied facilities spread over big areas that create both an academic atmosphere and aesthetic environment needed for university learning. Even those universities that claim themselves to be the franchises of better known foreign institutions are probably violating the rules of franchise by not providing standards on a par with parent organizations abroad.
The government should encourage the growth of private centres of higher education. But it must be much more serious about its regulatory functions. The formation of an accreditation council to rate the private universities for their standard and to disseminate its findings to students and guardians is badly needed. The UGC on its part should no more be lax about persuading the non-compliant institutions. It can, at most, give a far shorter deadline to these institutions to improve standards or face the surety of the termination of their licences to operate.
A high-powered committee of the University Grants Commission (UGC) that went to work to ascertain the performance of private universities in 2003, gave a large number of them a period of five years to fulfill certain criteria to maintain their licences. A similar work has reportedly re-started recently. Show cause notices have, thus, been issued, according to reports in some sections of media, against thirteen of them afresh for not meeting conditions pledged in 2003. Ten more are likely to get similar notices from the University Grants Commission (UGC), fairly soon. The UGC had set deadlines to be met by these institutions in respect of shifting to their own campuses from hired buildings and meeting other standards to provide truly quality education.
The high costs of the private universities have meant that these remain off-limits for many students who desire higher education. Thus, these could not be the alternative to many young ones who calculated that the private institutions would come to their rescue in a situation where the public universities could offer them no seats. Qualitatively too, except a few private universities, the teaching standard, the academic atmosphere and the worth of the degrees of the others are in doubt. But this lack of quality has not prevented them from charging relatively very high fees compared to the public universities.
Almost all of the private universities lack the characteristics of real campuses. Housed on rented buildings, these appear more like coaching centres than real universities that have varied facilities spread over big areas that create both an academic atmosphere and aesthetic environment needed for university learning. Even those universities that claim themselves to be the franchises of better known foreign institutions are probably violating the rules of franchise by not providing standards on a par with parent organizations abroad.
The government should encourage the growth of private centres of higher education. But it must be much more serious about its regulatory functions. The formation of an accreditation council to rate the private universities for their standard and to disseminate its findings to students and guardians is badly needed. The UGC on its part should no more be lax about persuading the non-compliant institutions. It can, at most, give a far shorter deadline to these institutions to improve standards or face the surety of the termination of their licences to operate.