The country did not have a proper national public education system at the time of Independence. The overall literacy rate was at a rock bottom. The number of institutions right from primary to post-secondary stage of education was excessively frustrating. There was hardly any network of premier institutions which could significantly contribute in nation-building. There were only 25 universities and about 500 colleges. The nation-building clearly was a daunting challenge under such unfavourable circumstances. But the leadership of the time was ardently committed to lay the foundation of an empowered and strong India through education. Since they knew the situation well enough, the first-ever decision that they had taken in 1948 was to set up the University Education Commission (UEC) to give new direction to higher education in independent India which had come out of the burden of colonial rule after a prolonged struggle.
One of the most important recommendations of the UEC was related to the creation of a statutory regulatory body, the University Grants Commission (UGC), which resulted in the enactment of the UGC Act, 1956. The UGC was chartered with the task of maintenance of norms and standards in higher education along with disbursement of grants to enable the university system to perform its anticipated challenging roles. There was an element of farsightedness in the provision of the UGC Act, as it had envisioned that there could be institutions beyond the universities to play a seminal role in higher education and research and they could be treated like universities.
The basic idea behind this proposal was to recognise the academic excellence of an institution and authorise it with powers to award degrees identical to those of universities. The UGC Act thus provides for the establishment of an institution deemed to be university. Accordingly, the Central government, on the advice of the UGC, was mandated to notify any institution for higher education, other than a university, as deemed to be university. The provision of the creation of an institution deemed to be university is indeed a tribute to the visionaries who laid the foundation of higher education in the independent India.
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), Delhi were the first set of institutions that were notified as institutions Deemed to be universities in the year 1958 because of their pioneering contributions in the fields of applied sciences, technology and agriculture. Four more institutions joined the league of deemed to be universities over a period of next six years. Gurukul Kangri, Haridwar, became a deemed to be university in 1962, Gujarat Vidyapith in 1963 and BITS, Pilani and TISS, Bombay in 1964. Thus, only six institutions were conferred the status of deemed to be university in a span of eight years after the commencement of the UGC Act. Most of these institutions have proved to be excellent examples of meaningful partnership between public and private sectors in higher education.
Much of the progress in higher education during the initial period was credited to public institutions. The share of the private sector was almost negligible prior to the era of liberalisation. The total number of degree awarding institutions at that time was only 185. Of them, the private sector was represented only by 8 deemed to be universities. There was not a single state private university at that point in time. This was the time when the sector of higher education was under tremendous pressure for expansion partly due to spike in transition rates from secondary to post-secondary and partly due to swelling aspirations of the middle-class population. Since the public sector was not in a position to make new capital investment due to resource crunch, the sector was thrown open to private entrepreneurs. However, the only window available to them was that of becoming a deemed to be university because by then neither the states nor the centre had enacted any legislation for the establishment of private universities.
Thus the private entrepreneurs gradually took advantage of this unique opportunity. Though the number of deemed universities grew at a very slow pace between 1990 and 2000 despite neoliberal reforms, shortly thereafter, it picked up momentum. The number of deemed to be universities rose from 37 to 128 within a short span of ten years between 2001 and 2009, with a maximum number of such institutions in the states of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. It is important to recognise the trend in the growth of deemed to be universities both from the point of view of the year of their notifications and their proliferation only in a few states.
It seems that there were a couple of reasons for such a sudden spurt in the number of deemed to be universities. The first reason was the absence of any legislative enactment by the states for the establishment of a private university till 1995. The states of Madhya Pradesh and Sikkim were the first to enact the laws in 1995, resulting in two private universities, one in each state. The second was the inability of public universities to maximise their residual capacities and the third was the ambivalence of public universities to diversify their curricular provisions from general programs to market oriented ones.
Nevertheless, the growth trend of deemed to be universities shows an otherwise inexplicable phenomenon. Initially, there were several gap years when no proposal seemed to have been submitted for grant of deemed to be university status. This scenario continued for over four decades. But then there was a sudden rise in numbers with maximum concentration in a few states with resultant possibilities of commercialisation. Besides, their programmatic structures, that were not in any specialised areas, as were reflected in their proposals, gave rise to suspicion in the minds of authorities about the quality of their programmes, leading to intervention petition and Court’s direction to the UGC to replace its Guidelines by Regulations.
In keeping with the developments, the MHRD constituted a five-member Review Committee under the chairmanship of Prof P.N. Tandon in 2009, to ascertain whether they were serving the purpose for which they were conferred the status. All 128 deemed to be universities were evaluated by the Review Committee against nine parameters. Many of these institutions were not found to be up to expected standards on these parameters. The Committee decided to classify them into three categories. Of them, 38 which justified their continuation were placed in category-A. Another 44,that were found to be deficient in certain areas were placed in category-B. They were given three-year time to rectify their deficiencies. The remaining 44 were found unfit and thus placed in category-C. Two of them had opted out on their own from the review process.
The Category-C institutions approached the Supreme Court with an impassioned plea for relief. The Court directed the MHRD in 2011 to give individual hearing to these institutions. Further, the Court directed the UGC to examine all reports with notices to all these institutions and take an independent decision in accordance with law. After inspecting 7 of those institutions that filed interlocutory before the court, the UGC submitted its report. In 2015, the court directed the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) to carry out accreditation of ‘C’ category institutions. Thereafter, the matter was disposed of by the Court.
Analyses of the accreditation data of as many as 104 out of 125 deemed to be universities reveal new insights into the current functioning of these institutions. Fairly a large number of them seem to be on a path of self-improvement as is evident from their overall rating indicated in the form of Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) by the NAAC. Out of a pool of 80, as many as 24 made the cut in the top grade (A++), followed by 21 in the next grade (A+) and another 35 in the next to next grade (A). In the subsequent group of 23, as many as 11 passed the muster with B++, followed by 5 with B+ and another 7 with B grade. Only one of them got the ‘C’ grade.
The data visibly reveal that the accreditation status of deemed to be universities is much better than the private universities both in terms of quantity and quality. As against 104 out of 125 Deemed universities, only 54 out of 372 private universities have got themselves accredited by NAAC thus far. Correspondingly, while 24 Deemed to be universities got the highest grade (A++) and another 21 the second highest (A+), none of the private universities could make a cut into either of the two. Similarly, as against 35 deemed to be universities, only 13 private universities could barely attain grade – ‘A’. Clearly, it is an apology to quality and more so when mandatory accreditation had been in vogue for over two decades.
Pre-eminence of deemed to be universities gets further corroborated by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) data, which is wholly compiled and collated by the Ministry. It shows that as many as 35 of them have figured in the first hundred institutions during the last two cycles. Furthermore, six out of ten private institutions that have been identified by the government as Institutions of Eminence (IoE) in 2019, happened to be from amongst deemed to be universities, like KIIT, Bhubaneswar and VIT, Vellore. It is evidently clear from NAAC accreditation and NIRF ranking that institutions deemed to be universities are on the path of self-improvement. It would be worthwhile for others in the sector to try to emulate the recent success of these institutions.
While these institutions have every right to take profound satisfaction in their achievements, they should give equal credit, if not more, to the Tondon Committee which made them realise that in education it could not be business as usual. Surely, it would not have been accomplished without the hard-hitting review by the Committee. The most important lesson that needs to be learned from the Tandon Committee is that the purpose of any review or accreditation or ranking should not be mere certification of quality assurance. It should rather be a mechanism to provide for step-by-step advice by the peers to move to higher levels.
The writer is former chairman, UGC. The views expressed are personal.