UGC releases draft regulations on 'deemed to be universities'

Deemed universities will also be allowed to start off-shore campuses and admissions will be based on a testing by a government agency

Institutions with as many as five departments and those that have secured accreditation of 3.1 CGPA by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) three years in a row for two-thirds of their eligible programmes, will be eligible for a “deemed” university status, the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) new rules for deemed universities states.

The draft UGC (Institutions Deemed to be Universities) Regulations, 2022 were announced Friday and will be made final after stakeholder consultations.

UGC chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar said that the higher education body had notified the University Grants Commission (Institutions Deemed to be Universities) Regulations, 2019 in the Gazette of India on February 20, 2019.

“These Regulations were notified to regulate, in an orderly manner, the process of declaration of institutions of academic excellence as Deemed to be Universities; and, further to maintain the quality of higher education imparted by Institutions Deemed to be Universities consistent with the ideals of the concept of a University,” Kumar said.

“Higher education in the country is going through a major transformation with the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020. UGC has reframed and modified the University Grants Commission (Institutions Deemed to be Universities) Regulations, 2019 to make them in tune with the broader policies of higher education as contained in the NEP, 2020,” he said.

Alternately, the UGC rules state that institutes that do not have the required NAAC accreditation could also be in the top 50 of any specific category of National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) for the last three years continuously or in the top 100 of overall NIRF ranking for last three years continuously.

Institutes that have less than A in the NAAC accreditation but are in the top 100 of the NIRF ranking will be monitored by an Expert Committee of the UGC, the rules state.

Institutes that want to initiate off-campus centres will have to have a minimum grade of A in NAAC or be ranked between 1-100 in NIRF. The draft rules also state that while approval for off-campus Centres was earlier given by the union ministry of education, it will now be granted by the UGC.

Through the Rules, the IGC has also introduced graded penalties for violations. Penalties include a warning through public notice, barring institutes from any expansion, the closure of programmes, departments or off-campus facilities. In case of repeated violations, the rules state the withdrawal of Deemed University status.