Graded-autonomy a bold move towards liberalising Higher Eduacation: FICCI

In an endeavour to liberalize the higher education, the government has made a landmark announcement to grant graded autonomy to 62 institutions. Prakash Javadekar, Minister of Human Resource Development in an event of FICCI announced the full autonomy given to the institutions which no longer require permissions of the University Grants Commission (UGC) to start a course, fix fees, set up a new department or open offline campuses. These will also be free to have collaboration with foreign counterparts, hire foreign faculty, and admit students from abroad.

Welcoming the decision, Mr. Mohandas Pai, Chair, FICCI Skill Development Committee and Chairman, Manipal Global Education and said, “This is great news, after 50+ years of control with declining standards, the top Universities have finally got their freedom. This is indeed historic and Government has kept its promise.” He further added, “Going forward, we hope the top 200 Universities will also enjoy this very soon. We now need a Rs 5000 cr research fund to improve India’s global standing in Higher Education.”

Dr. Vidya Yeravdekar, Chair, FICCI Higher Education Committee and Pro-Chancellor, Symbiosis International University said, “We are very happy with the decision of MHRD and UGC of giving autonomy to certain category of institutions. This will not just help in expansion but in driving excellence in these institutions.”

Dr. Rajan Saxena, Advisor, FICCI Higher Education Committee and Vice Chancellor, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies said, “The decision of MHRD to grant autonomy to 62 institutions in India in category-I or category-II, is indeed a step forward in making Indian Higher Education excellent and of a global quality. The government and the Honourable Minister need to be complimented for this bold and visionary step.” He also added, “This will help institutions emerge as benchmarks and not only so, also emerge as a global benchmark, especially in emerging markets.”

Ms Rupamanjari Ghosh, Co-chair, FICCI Higher Education Committee and Vice-Chancellor, Shiv Nadar University said, “Since quality is being rewarded with some autonomy of functioning. Combined with reforms in the method of critical assessments of quality in Indian Higher Education Institutions, this is a step in the right direction.”

Ms Shobha Mishra Ghosh, Assistant Secretary General, FICCI said, “FICCI has been pioneer in pursuing this subject for more than a decade. This move is a step towards building India as knowledge capital and paving the way for a New India”.  This reform was urgently required for differentiating between good quality institutions from institutions which do not meet the required quality standards. It will further help in building a cohesive ecosystem where higher educational institutions/universities would thrive to meet the global quality standards to feature in the list “Institute of Eminence.”   

The decision includes 5 Central Universities, 21 State Universities and 26 Private Universities and 10 other colleges. The autonomy was granted under the new regulation, ‘Categorization of Universities for Grant of Graded Autonomy’ introduced by UGC, and based on the institution’s National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) accreditation score on three categories: I, II, and III.