THE road to hell is paved with good intentions,” said the Vice Chancellor of a state private University, when quizzed about the report of the Tandon Committee, which was set up to review the status of Deemed Universities (DUs).

On the basis of the recommendations made by the review Committee on 126 DUs examined by it, the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD), recommended the closure of 44 of them. During the course of our discussions with VCs, Founders and Trustees, three issues were voiced very strongly, the unfairness of the process, the lack of provision of time to correct errors if any, and the dichotomy between this report as well as the report by the UGC.

The submissions to the court, on behalf of the aggrieved parties (represented by a battery of 117 legal luminaries), cited lack of jurisdiction, statuary versus non-statutory distinctions, denial of natural justice etc. On April 13, 2010, the day of the final hearing of the case, the following five outcomes are possible, based on our understanding of the case:

A) The court dismisses all objections and let the MHRD proceed with implementing the road map. In other words all 44 affected DUs face closure. Massive relocation of students – LEAST PROBABLE

B) The court accepts some pleas, rejects some, and consequently concedes to hear only accepted  pleas. The impact will depend on what the court decides - LESS PROBABLE

C) There exists another case at the Supreme Court, which questions the legality of the UGC powers to declare an institution as a Deemed University. The court might hear this case in detail. It’s difficult to predict what would happen to students in this case. This would also affect the students of all the other 88 DUs - PROBABLE

D) The court hears the plea but prevents new admissions. Does not affect existing students in terms of their degree, but could badly impact placements – MORE PROBABLE

E) The court goes on to hear the case and its ramifications but lets the status quo continue, even allowing admission of new students. It will be great going for the students – MORE PROBABLE

Summary of the report
Let’s look at how the committee arrived at its conclusions. Each institution was reviewed on nine parameters. Each parameter was rated on a scale of 0 to 5. So theoretically an institution could get a maximum of 45 points, if it satisfied all the criteria by 100%.The report gives us the points scored by all DUs with respect to each of the nine parameters.

But there is no information on objective, comparable criteria, on which the committee rated each of the parameters, in the first place. Take the academic output, for instance. There are no answers to the following questions. To score a 5/5, how many publications should a deemed university have produced? And in what type of journals (international or domestic)? Are they normalised for diversity of faculty, are disciplinary differences accounted for? Does the quality of journal matter? If so, how? Does the number of faculty count while calculating the publication record? So we looked at each parameter in detail, and this is what we found. 

I. Does the institution in question meet the ‘idea’ of a university as envisioned by various clauses/reports?
This is a no-brainer; if an institution does not meet this criterion, there’s is no point in discussing further. Even among the 38 A-Grade institutions, the committee says only 6 (15%) get full marks (5/5). And what is interesting is the fact that 18 of the 38 are single faculty/discipline wonders. And questions like how has the committee concluded that IIFT, and IIITs, NDRI, and NBRC are comparable to IISc, and BITS Pilani, must not be asked.

II. Can the institution continue to offer its degrees even if the DU tag is taken away? And how far has this status enhanced the performance of the institution?
Most of them offered degree programmes before they applied for the DU status. So the first part of the question is irrelevant. Oddly enough, the report says IIIT, Hyderabad (Grade A) cannot do what it does without DU status but IIIT, Gwalior (Grade B) can. Remember, BOTH are IIITs. Now, the second part of the question is valid. It could be answered by the increase in the number of programmes, periodicity of revision of curriculum, introduction of new courses etc. But no analysis or data is provided in the report.

III. Conformity to provisions of UGC (Clause 4 & 16 ‘de novo’ )
Here, I empathise with the committee. While Clause 4 stands for proven excellence, Clause 16 stands for potential for excellence. And of the 130 DUs, some applied under clause 4 and many applied under clause 16. As senior journalist Ramakrishnan commented on Clause 16 in the magazine Frontline, “It is learnt that this category was introduced by Murli Manohar Joshi so that the new Indian Institutes of Information Technology

(IIIT) established in Allahabad and Gwalior could become eligible for deemed university status.”
By its very logic, such young institutions, which applied under Clause 16, could not have achieved excellence at the time of application. So what is the conformity that the committe looked at ? How was it defined and measured? How does one rate potential? No answers.

IV. Aspects of governance
The committee visibly vents its frustration here, about the governance structure dominated by either the founder’s family or government nominees, and decries both with equal vehemence. But the culprits are not the institutions but guidelines by the UGC. Its model Rules of the Institute Clause 5 (b) 9 Notes say: The Chairman of the Board shall ordinarily be the Vice-Chancellor of the Institute. However, while suggesting the composition of the Board of Management; alternate proposals for appointment of a Chairman of the Board could be made”. If institutes make use of this glaring loophole, who is to be blamed?

V. Teaching quality and innovations
This is one of the three sections, where the report is on solid ground. But the biggest problem is that most observations are valid but generic. For instance, take the first observation; the committee argues that institutes which gained DU status for good work done in a particular field, has expanded into unrelated disciplines after becoming a DU. While a very valid comment, it still does explain on what basis it is wrong.  As long us the constituent colleges are approved by the UGC, the branching out by institutes is perfectly legal.

VI. Research output
The most valid section of the report. If the output is poor, this is reason enough for these institutions to be denied the status. But as explained in the beginning, the report gives no objective basis for us to reach that conclusion.  One cannot resist thinking about the quality of research and publications in most of the state universities that the authors of the report direct  the constituent colleges of the deemed universities, to affiliate themselves to, in case of closure. What is good for the gander must be good for the goose too, right?

VII. Doctoral programme
The pathetic state of doctoral programmes in the country is reflected in the DUs as well. The report laments that institutes with 200 faculty members have 1,500 PhD students. But UGC/AICTE norms permit each faculty to guide seven students. There are no norms about the number of courses, compulsory comprehensive, mandatory publications, definitions on what qualifies as a refereed publication etc. This doesn’t absolve the DUs but could we have some data please?

VIII. Faculty resources
Ordinarily, the institution must have created at least five departments with every department having in position a minimum staff of one Professor, two Readers and an adequate number of staff. This would have been the easiest for a DU to score maximum marks, isn’t? But they do not? Many score minimum. How and why is left to the imagination.

IX. Admission process
One conclusion that stands out in the report is the argument that some DUs have disproportionately increased their intake, post gaining their status. It is imperative that, the ministry provides information regarding which of these deemed universities have increased the student strength and on what basis. As of now we only have a statement. Have only the 38 C-grade institutes done it? Did all A-grade institutes operate with the same numbers, before and after they gained the DU status? Again we are left to speculate.

The Committee’s partial road map
A-Grade institutes are the best according to the report and students of such institutions have nothing to fear. B-Grade ones have five years to correct their deficiencies. So in 2014 the institutes could actually face the same scenario faced by some in 2010.  The C-Grade ones would be divested of their status. The partial road map drafted by the Committee suggests two alternatives to safeguard interests of students:

• Wherever possible the constituent colleges revert back to their affiliated status.
• Wherever it is not possible, students will get admission to other colleges/ universities.

Multiple variations of these two options are suggested in the report, depending on the situation. For those unfortunate students who fall under neither of the above categories, the report suggests a case-to-case treatment “with care and sympathy”.

What next?
Assume for a moment, that all findings of the report are correct, even with no data backing them. Is the suggested road map, the best thing?  It raises a whole lot of issues, which are not even deliberated in the public domain? One hopes that the Supreme Court will take cognizance of each one of them, before it pronounces the judgment.

FIRSTLY, the report suggests affiliation as a way forward. Both the National knowledge Commission, as well as Yashpal Commission have elucidated the ills of the same, and the need to reduce and finally eliminate the need for affiliation. According to a professor from a DU, it’s like going from the frying pan into the fire, considering the state of state-level universities in the country.

SECONDLY, the tremendous incongruity, which characterises the UGC’s policy-making apparatus, must go. For instance, some DUs have colleges in multiple states, which are all approved by UGC since its norms permit it. But in case of state private universities, the UGC does not permit any campuses outside the primary location for the first five years, and no campus outside the state at all, any time. Why this dichotomy, is unexplained. There must be one set of norms, for all types of universities.

THIRDLY, it’s time we did a reality check on excellence. All institutes will not be excellent. So the UGC must define its parameters for minimum standards. Reward those who exceed the expectations and  recognise the rest who just about meet them, but have one uniform set of standards. Why should a Central university be allowed to run with not a single permanent faculty just because it is state-run institution?

FINALLY, the idea of “Deemed University’ itself is an anachronism. One is either a university or one is not. It is time, this ‘deemed status’ is given a decent burial. HRD Minister Kapil Sibal was intuitively right in his assertion of doing away with this ‘deemed-to-be’  universities. But affiliation is not the ideal solution, it is an additional problem. We would recommend the   “Institutes of National Importance”, route to specialised, single-department wonders. All others must be directed to get an individual state university act passed. But for that to happen the current License Quota Raj must go.

There must be standard norms for the establishment of an institute and it must apply uniformly to public and privately funded institutions. If the norms are met, licensing must be automatic and time-bound. But that is not the case right now. Every trustee, we spoke to said he or she got the ‘status’ the straight and honest way, but knew of at least one other person who paid money. The price they quoted (of course totally off the record) was an astronomical 8-25 crores). It is time we stopped this. The best thing Dr. Manmohan Singh did in 1991, was delicensing. He set the industries free. Mr Sibal must set the institutions free.

But this would demand an over all vision, which seems to be lacking in the Ministry. Even in this  particular case, we are given to understand that the Ministry has still not made its stand clear as to what it shall do with respect to the four institutes that did not meet the Committee and were hence, not rated. These comprise National School of Drama, Bihar Yoga Bharti, Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute and Indian Law Institute.

If this is true, the mandarins at the ministry are behaving mechanically, without applying mind to the issue on hand. If the ministry can’t even get this simple problem right, what should one conclude about its ability to get the larger educational policy issues right?

Will the Ministry of HRD answer? Will the courts listen? The students of India are anxiously waiting. After all, it is their future.