IT IS SIMPLY IMPOSSIBLE TO DEAL WITH 8,000 COLLEGES SITTING IN DELHI

Former UGC Chairman, Rama Reddy, who retired on December 2, Discusses the aims and policies of the Commission with Osama Manzar

Q What are the functions of the University Grants Commission (UGC)?
A. The functions of UGC are broadly two. One is to maintain and coordinate standards in higher education. Two is to give grants for promotion of higher education. Under the first it issues guidelines from time to time, to the universities and colleges
Q. Is there any fixed period of issuing guidelines?
A. No, It depends on the issues. For instance, examination how to improve the examination system or how to switch over to new systems.
So far as grant is concerned, we give two types of grants. Development or plan grant and the other is maintenance grant. Development grant is given to all universities of the country whereas, maintenance grant is given only to the central universities, Delhi colleges and a few deemed universities.
Q. On what criteria is development grant given?
A. Development grant is not a permanent grant. It is given to develop an institution; like construction of library, buildings, purchase of books, equipments, or for starting new programmes. But, development grant is given only for five years, then the State Government is supposed to take the responsibility.
Q. What is the budget this year?
A. A little more than Rs 560 crore, for both the development and the maintenance grants.
Q. What is the rate of increase of the budget?
A. There is no fixed rate, especially not in the case of development budget. It is a plan grant that is given to us by the Planning Commission, under annual plan grant on five-year term basis. In maintenance grant, yes, the grant increases according to the inflation rate, which is about 10-12 per cent.
Q. How far has the UGC been able to meet the standard of education In higher classes, as it claims to have?
A. It is a vast system. We have 8,000 colleges and we deal with about 160 universities. We issue the guidelines, which some universities accept and
some universities do not. That is because the universities are autonomous. Sometimes, they even change the guidelines,
Q. Are you not supposed to look into the fact how far the UGC guidelines have been accepted, projected or misinterpreted?
A. We don’t control the universities, and only guide them. They are autonomous institutions and free to take their own decisions.
Q. Why has the UGC not been able to meet its own ‘standard’ and as a result mediocre research scholars arc being produced en masse?
A. It cannot be generalised. You can’t say that all the universities are producing mediocres. We have quite a few centres of excellence in the country. However, I agree that the aver age is rather weak, and that has to be strengthened. But, people start colleges without any infrastructure, proper building, libraries, adequate staff. 1 think State governments should exercise some control over it.
Q. What do you think Is the remedy to such a situation?
A. Before you start an institution you must make sure that the institution can give proper education to the people and the system has to be rigorous. Our system is somewhat loose. For example there are universities in this country which don’t work for 180 days in a year, they neither conduct examination nor admission on time. The system is rather loose and has to be tightened, but who will do that? UGC sitting in Delhi, can not deal with 8,000 colleges. It is an impossible task. It is a dream. But at the State level there has to be a mechanism, as each State is a vast unit. Therefore it was suggested in the new education policy (NEP) that there should be a State Council of Higher Education (SCHE). Something like the UGC which will determine, maintain the standard at the State level. So, far only two states, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, have started SCHE, others are yet to start. It’s eight years since this (SCHE) recommendation has been -made. I am surprised that nowhere has the recommendation been taken seriously.

Q. Why is UGC more a grant- giving body than a standard maintaining body?
A. Yes, unfortunately, the name itself is a misnomer instead of UGC, it should have called University Education Commission because It performs both the function Because of the name, the stress automatically falls more on grants. Money is important but other aspects are equally Important. And, in a number of areas, UGC has played a significant role. For example, training of teachers. It has started academic staff college, which gives some training to teachers. Then we also started National Eligibility Test (NET), which is supposed to ensure minimum standard in the recruitment of teachers.

Q. What is the function of the National Assessment and Accredition Council (NAAC)?
A. This is a body which has been recently set up by the Government and the UGC to assess and accredit educational institutions Today there is no assessment and no accredition of educational institutions. Accredition is of two types: One is compulsory as in UK. And the other is volutitary as in the US, where assessment of educational institutions are done by agencies. However, for all practical purposes the institutions are accredited in US. We have also made it voluntary here.
Q. Why has the Delhi High Court ordered for an amendment hi the UGC Act?
A. The order was with regard to the NET which was challeng ed by Delhi University and both high court and Supreme Court have upheld the regulations of the UGC They did not ask us to amend but we were advised to look into the problem of implementation of NET, if any.
Q. Why Is it being alleged that UGC is going to hand over universities and other institutions to private bodies and also withdraw the grants?
A. It is a wrong impression. Nowhere have we said that the universities should be privatised. Neither has the UGC said it nor has the - Government of India. There are two meanings of privatisation. One is, that an existing institution managed with Government funds is handed over to private party, which is not true. The other meaning of privatisation is to allow private parties to participate in higher education, which is already there. Out of 8,000 colleges, nearly 5,000 are private.
Q. What kind of lacunae did you come across in UGC?
A. Well, UGC has tremendous potential to improve higher education but one institution alone cannot do this. Moreover, UGC is unfortunately like any other Government concern which it should not be.