Monday, August 10, 2015

Varsities face grant cut if they fail to provide information on faculty

With universities failing to provide timely and proper details required by the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) for four years since this exercise began, the Human Resource Development Ministry has decided to use its financial control to make them fall in line. And, has also empowered itself to take punitive action.

Universities — the Central, the State and deemed-to-be under Section 3 of the University Grants Commission (UGC) Act, 1956 — have been warned that they could face a 25 per cent cut in grant-in-aid if they failed to upload the necessary information required by AISHE in time. Since such warnings in the past have fallen on deaf ears, the Ministry in June-end notified a fresh set of rules — The UGC (Furnishing of Information by Universities) Rules 2015 — to give the commission more teeth in dealing with non-compliance.

Punitive action

Apart from cutting grant-in-aid, the UGC and, even the Ministry, is now empowered to take punitive action for not just non-compliance, but also providing inaccurate or wrong data.

The details that universities are expected to furnish include their academic schedule, student and faculty strength, admission parameters, facilities provided, annual accounts, courses, vacancies and foreign collaborations.

Though the Ministry’s decision to wield the stick has raised eyebrows in the university eco-system, UGC member M.M. Ansari said only a third of the universities would be covered under the notification.

Source | The Hindu | 8 August 2015

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