core sector communique

Standard of Indian Universities

The standard of Indian Universities has not been declining in comparison to other Asian Universities. While there is no universally recognized international system of ranking of standards of higher educational institutions, many Indian higher educational institutions are comparable to the best institutions in the world and other Asian countries. The different ranking systems use different values, indices and parameters to rank higher educational institutions and some of these parameters are not relevant for Indian higher educational institutions and such comparisons cannot constitute the basis of benchmarking of Indian higher educational institutions. The Government of India has taken several steps to improve the standard of Indian Universities. A substantial increase in Plan allocation has been made in XI Plan aiming at improvement of quality of higher educational institutions. During the Plan period, a large number of new institutions – Central Universities, Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management, National Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes for Science Education & Research, Schools of Planning & Architecture – have been established. University Grants Commission (UGC), has been implementing a number of schemes aimed at improvement of quality of education in Indian Universities and has taken up various measures for educational reforms, such as introduction of semester system, regular updating of curricula and Choice Based Credit Systems (CBCS) etc, which have been implemented by most of the Central universities. The UGC has also issued Regulations on “Minimum Qualifications for Appointment of Teachers and other Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges and Measures for the Maintenance of Standards in Higher Education, 2010” for improving the standard of teaching in Indian Universities. In order to reform higher education, legislative proposals for prohibiting unfair practices in higher educational institutions; for making accreditation mandatory and for regulating the entry and operations of foreign educational institutions, have been introduced in Parliament. Another legislation, to create an overarching body to regulate higher education holistically, keeping in mind the increasingly converging nature of disciplines and to explore the opportunities of knowledge creation that lie at the intersections of existing disciplines, has been introduced in Parliament. This information was given by the Minister of State for Human Resource Development , Shri E. Ahamed in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today.