To deem or not to deem

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: Advertent or inadvertent, the ministry of human resources development (MHRD) in its second consecutive term under the UPA government seems to have landed upon ‘deemed-to-be-universities’ as its starting point for reform in higher education. Now that they have landed on it, MHRD can’t take it lightly as deemed universities constitute more than 25% of the 431 universities in India. 2009 count shows 125 deemed universities of which 90 are private and 35 are government-run. Also, noteworthy is that till 2004 there were cumulatively 66 private and government deemed universities that almost doubled in five years to 125 and majority of the 59 new ones that have been added are private.

What went wrong…

The difference between deemed-to-be universities and state or central universities is that while the former ‘are declared as an act of the executive’, state and central universities are ‘established by state or central government as an act of legislative’. What this means is that deemed-to-be universities are evaluated and granted their approval by the UGC and MHRD, while state and central universities need to be approved by state assembly and parliament respectively.

The standard procedure to get deemed university status includes application by the institute to the MHRD who forwards this application to UGC. The UGC evaluates the institute according to its set standards and recommends it for either grant or rejection of the deemed university status. Deemed university status, it can then be said is granted with hand in hand approval of both UGC and MHRD.

Compared with the state and central university approval process, which at face value is more transparent and consensus-based, ‘deemed-to-be-university approvals’ have become accessible to institutes who have influence and may not have merit. This has disillusioned reputed institutes such as National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad that sought deemed status for several years but allegedly has decided to hold the application process dissuaded with the idea of UGC bureaucracy on top of them. Incidentally, NID earlier fell under the purview of ministry of industry whom they found difficult to work with and get approval from for their academic pursuits.