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The University Grants Commission (UGC) has recently tied up with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to ensure that students from the remotest areas can have access to online education facilities. The information has been declared by Professor Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar, Chairman, University Grants Commission (UGC) GoI, at the roundtable – ‘Enhancing Competitiveness and Quality Revolution in Indian Higher Education (IHE). The UGC chairman was the chief guest of the event. The roundtable was organised by the apex industry body, Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).
“We are working on a multi-dimensional way to make sure that education reaches to the last student in the most remote area. So, we have signed up with MeitY as they have a large number of common service centres (CSCs). Any student can walk into those centres, pay a nominal monthly fee, and access digital universities,” he said.
Professor Kumar gave insights into the various initiatives undertaken by the Government of India to expand and enhance higher education in the country. “The introduction of Common Universities Entrance Test Undergraduate (CUET UG) 2022 has been well received by the students and the stakeholders. A huge number of students, around 14.9 lakhs registered for this examination, which is only next to NEET (National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test),” he said.
Speaking on the possible merger between NEET and JEE, he added, “That’s an idea that we are floating so that there is wider discussion among the stakeholders. There is no formal decision that we have taken on this.”
With respect to bringing international students into Indian educational institutions, he said, “Recently we have raised the upper cap to 25 per cent, earlier it was 15 per cent. And in the same guidelines, we also said that as far as the admission of these students are concerned, each individual university can have their own admission policy and in terms of fixing their own tuition fee. We hope that with this flexibility given to our education institutions will be able to attract a lot of international students.”
He informed that the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) is going to be enhanced soon. “It is going to be a comprehensive document. It will become the foundation of all kinds of education with the integration of three pillars – school education, skill education and national higher educational,” he added.
On a question on deemed-to- be universities, Professor Kumar said, “There are around 126 deemed universities in India and we are already working on the deemed-to-be universities’ regulations. Removing the tag ‘deemed-to-be’ requires an amendment at UGC part, but it will surely happen,” he concluded.
Other who also spoke during the meeting were Dr Madhu Chitkara Co-Chairperson, ASSOCHAM NCE and Pro-Chancellor, Chitkara University; Kunwar Shekhar Vijendra Chairman, ASSOCHAM National Council on Education and Co-Founder and Chancellor, Shobhit University; Dr Ashwani Lochan Co-Chairman, ASSOCHAM NCE and Chairman, Arunachal University of Studies.
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