The New Nation - Internet Edition

A HIGH-POWERED committee of the University Grants Commission (UGC) in 2003 gave a large number of private universities a period of five years to fulfil certain criterion to maintain their licences. The committee resumed its work recently and issued show cause notices against thirteen of them afresh for not meeting the conditions. Ten more are likely to get similar notices from the UGC, fairly soon, according to a media report. 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 education in the private universities mean that these remain off limits for many students. Thus, these are not the alternatives for many pupils who thought that the private institutions would come to their rescue as 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 the private universities lack required campuses. Housed in rented buildings, these appear more like coaching centres than universities that have varied facilities spread over big areas that create both an academic atmosphere and aesthetic environment needed for university learning. 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 standards and disseminate findings to students and guardians is badly needed. The UGC should deal with the non-compliant institutions effectively.