Affiliated Colleges can Request Autonomy Directly from UGC

New Delhi: The University Grants Commission (UGC) has accepted the new guidelines to offer autonomy to affiliated and constituent colleges, according to individuals familiar with the situation.

According to the officials, the affiliate and constituent colleges can directly appeal to the commission for academic and executive autonomy at any time of the year.

The UGC (Conferment of Autonomous Status upon Colleges and Measures for Maintenance of Standards in Autonomous Colleges) Regulations, 2022, will replace the 2018 regulations.

The updated guidelines draft was accepted at the commission meeting held on September 22. On the 1st of September, It was reported that the regulator was revising laws to grant colleges autonomy.

According to the norms, qualified institutions can apply to the UGC site anytime during the year.

Proposed regulations said, "The parent university will review the college's application for autonomous status and provide its recommendations, together with reasons/justification, within 30 days on the UGC portal. It shall be presumed that the University has no objections if it does not respond via the UGC site within thirty days."

The proposal was to be submitted by colleges to the parent university by the 2018 regulations, which required the parent institution to send it to the committee within 30 days of receipt.

The requirements for eligibility remain the same. The applicant colleges must be accredited either by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council with a minimum A grade (with a score of 3.0 and above on a 4-point scale) or by the National Board of Accreditation for at least three programmes with a minimum grade of 675.

The applicant colleges may be fully or partially funded, aided, unaided, or self-financing. According to UGC chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar, the guidelines have been updated with the assistance of an expert group to conform to the National Education Policy 2020's suggestions.

According to Kumar, "These regulations provide the autonomous institutions leeway to choose and prescribe their own courses of study and syllabi, and to restructure and reorganise the courses to fit local needs, make it skill-oriented, and in compliance with the job requirements."

Additionally, the independent institution can establish its admission requirements, develop assessment procedures, administer exams, announce results, and support related research.

All colleges and institutes that belong to universities or are their component colleges must abide by these new regulations. While the universities support constituent colleges, affiliated colleges operate independently.

Among the other modifications recommended by the commission, if the college continues to meet the eligibility standards, its autonomous status will be "automatically extended." The initial period of autonomy will be ten years.

The suggested regulations stated that "colleges which have operated as independent colleges for 15 years consistently shall be treated as autonomous colleges on a permanent basis."

The drafts of the proposed regulations indicated that the autonomy would be "immediately removed" if the autonomous colleges did not uphold the requirements.

Unlike earlier requirements, autonomous colleges aren't required to have a UGC committee in their governing bodies or university candidates in their finance panels.

By Tuesday, the commission will make the updated regulations available to the public and invite comments from interested parties. "After hearing comments, we'll finalize this regulation," Kumar added.

Yogesh Singh, the vice-chancellor of Delhi University, stated, "We have not yet received a copy of the updated regulations. We'll look at them and evaluate how they'll be used in the situation of DU. Following our review of the rules, we will provide the UGC with our input."

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