Higher Education Authority to derecognise erring institutions

New Delhi, April 23: Powers to derecognise institutes lacking quality should be vested with the National Higher Education Authority, constitution of which was recommended by a HRD panel set up to evaluate UGC's performance.

The new statutory agency should have three boards to independently look after various functions of the authority in coordination with each other, HRD Minister Smriti Irani said.

These include a regulatory board to look after academics, research and regulatory functions, a funding board to evolve norms and parameters for allocation and be responsible for disbursement of grants, and a higher education councils coordination board to coordinate activities of different councils of higher education, the Minister said.

The former UGC chairman Hari Gautam-headed committee which submitted its report last month has also recommended that the pre-condition of 10-year experience as professor for appointment of vice chancellor should be dropped.

The recommendations were disclosed by the Minister in a written reply in Lok Sabha.

"The committee has recommended that instead of undertaking amendments in the UGC Act, 1956, the National Higher Education Authority Act be set up to repeal the existing UGC Act," she said.

However, till the time the new act is enacted, it has suggested revamping and remodelling UGC into a changed organisation through executive order, Irani added.

"The committee has recommended that the authority be invested with powers to reward and punish the quality or its absence as the case may be in higher educational institutions including the power to derecognise and or debar the erring institutions from functioning," she said in her reply.

Referring to the suggestion about removing the pre- condition of being a professor for 10 years to be appointed as VC, she said the committee made the recommendation arguing that regular appointment of VCs in central universities takes time while adhering to the procedure of appointments as per the statutes of central universities.

PTI