8.10.16

For 20 World Class Institutions....

Human Resource Development Ministry has put out draft regulations for the proposed 20 world-class institutions promising greater autonomy and academic flexibility to those that are able to demonstrate and achieve “the highest levels of global excellence in teaching and research“. The regulations have seen rounds of discussions and considerable friction between the HRD ministry and the PMO with the latter pushing for a highly liberalised regulatory regime free of UGC controls.
The ministry's preface to the regulation terms it as the beginning of a journey to restore the original mandate of higher education regulators, “as facilitators and guides, driven by norms of self-disclosure and transparency , instead of top-down command and control and micromanagement“. Public comments have been sought on the regulations until October 28--namely the UGC (Declaration of Government Educational Institutions as World Class Institutions) Guidelines, 2016 which would be applicable to all government owned & controlled Higher Educational Institutions, UGC (World Class Institutions Deemed to be Universities) Regulations, 2016 which would be applicable to privately owned & controlled Higher Educational Institutions. In keeping with the PMO's vision, the regulations allow considerable academic and administrative freedom to the proposed new institutes that will be selected, monitored and reviewed and even recommended for penalties if needed by an Empowered Expert Group (EEG).
However, with the recent opinion from the Solicitor General of India pointing out that the EEG cannot operate free of the University Grants Commission, the regulations have been reworked to say that while EEG will select the 20 institutes, it will have to place its recommendations before the UGC, which will decide on these within 15 days.The regulations say these institutions will not be encumbered with any `UGC mandated curriculum structure', will be free to charge the student fee they think appropriate provided there are blind policies in place, will be able to recruit up to 25% foreign faculty and more.

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