UGC’s clamp down on distance education goes against the spirit of NEP2020

Source– The post is based on the article “UGC’s clamp down on distance education goes against the spirit of NEP2020” published in The Indian Express on 6th June 2023.

Syllabus: GS2- Issues related to development and management of Education

Relevance: Issues related to distance education

News- An affidavit was filed recently in the court by the UGC after an inspection claim that Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) started its sub-campuses in five different locations without requisite permissions.

What are the issues regarding such regulations?

Higher educational institutions (HEI) are required to adhere to the UGC’s policy of territorial jurisdiction even for ODL. It is contrary to the idea of open learning as the technology which has no geographic or political boundaries.

In the past too, this regulation caused several regular universities to lose their learning centres outside their state. For example, Bharathiar University in Coimbatore was forced to discontinue around 450 franchises.

In a country,  the number of seats in educational institutions is below demand. Cutting off on an efficient alternative like ODL will be a major mistake. It can hurt the nation in the long-term.

Funding of higher education by the state has gone down and the traditional brick-and-mortar campuses are too expensive.

Under the graded autonomy scheme of UGC, only institutions with a NAAC score of more than 3.26 on a scale of 4 (A+ grade) are permitted to start ODL courses. In fact, Kerala does not have a single such varsity and consequently cannot run any ODL programmes.

Further, ODL courses are a major source of revenue for universities.

What is the way forward?

Any regulatory system that thrives on inspections as a means to deliver on its objectives will suffer from subjectivity, arbitrariness and corruption.

UGC must adopt technology rather than rely on inspections as a primary method of compliance.

Perhaps it’s time to revise the notion that “education is not for profit”. The money has to come from somewhere.