UGC plan for univs: you raise money and we control you

What discussion will happen is anybody’s guess since although suggestions are open till the end of the year, the questionnaire sent with the draft strangely does not seek opinion on the two key issues: raising money and interference.

While the draft guideline urges universities to ensure ‘‘mobilisation of financial resources to become self-sufficient,’’ it brazenly opens the door to in-your-face political meddling.

For, the guidelines suggest that for the first time the Council of Ministers of the Centre or the state will have a hand in running the universities through the Visitor.

The Visitor (in some cases the Chancellor) is often the President of India for Central universities and the Governor in the case of state universities.

The guideline says that the Visitor is now required to ‘‘discharge the constitutional responsibilities relating to the Central/State University and carry out recommendations of the Council of Ministers at the Centre/State, as the case may be….’’

Until now, the Council of Ministers has had little or no role in the university’s administrative matters. Some crucial decisions like the appointment of the Vice-Chancellor are left for ministries to decide but even then, it is up to the Visitor to take a final decision.

Now, the politicians want to appropriate this power for themselves.

Ministry sources were at pains to stress that the purpose of the guidlines was merely to start a debate and the model act would be finalised only after all suggestions had been studied. But while academics could make suggestions till the end of the year, the questionnaire strangely did not seek their opinion either on the issue of becoming financially self-reliant or on the question of the council of ministers playing a direct role in the running of universities. But P V Indiresan, former director of IIT Chennai, indicated that the UGC had turned market logic on its head.

He said that higher education could be made self-supporting in the case of management institutes, where the ultimate gainers were students and their employers. ‘‘But, say for students of liberal arts, the government has to go on subsidising as it is the society alone that gains by this education. Employers are not going to give these students fat pay-packets.’’