DU teachers oppose new UGC regulations on granting autonomy

Delhi University teachers today criticised the UGC for coming up with regulations that aimed at "privatising" higher education and appealed to the teachers community to oppose the move.
The UGC had yesterday approved a new set of regulations called UGC (Categorisation of Universities for Grant of Graded Autonomy) Regulations-2017.
According to it, all universities and colleges would be graded into categories I/II/III based on their National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) accreditation and National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings.
The institutions having NAAC score more than 3.5 or NIRF ranking upto 50 for two consecutive years will be in Category I. The institutions having NAAC score from 3.01 to 3.49 or NIRF ranking between 51 to 100 will be in Category II and rest in Category III.

The category I institutions may open research parks, incubation centres, university society linkage centres either on its own or in partnership with private partners, without approval of Commission, the regulations read.
The teachers see the new regulations as a move to "decimate" the present courses run by colleges and the universities.

"The category I institutions would get autonomy without visit of experts committees. In the name of autonomy, the existing institutions will be converted into teaching shops to run market-friendly courses through their off-campus branches and distance education outlets," Rajesh Jha, an executive council member and professor, said.
The "so-called" autonomous institution will have market- oriented fee structure with their amount soaring into lakhs, he added.

"At such turn of events, when the government is moving ahead with brazen privatisation agenda, we appeal to the teaching community of this country to oppose and reject these draconian regulations unitedly," he said.
The UGC has requested feedback on the above draft documents before 15 June.
According to NIRF rankings 2017, the Delhi University ranks 15, while the Jawaharlal Nehru University 5th.