Lok Sabha Question No. 442 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2024-02-05
Subject: Establishment of Private Universities
Ministry: Education
Asked by: Pritam Gopinath Munde, Vellalath Kochukrishnan Nair. Sreekandan, Chandra Sekhar Sahu, Rahul Ramesh Shewale

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO- 442

ANSWERED ON- 05/02/2024

## Establishment of Private Universities

## 442 . DR. PRITAM GOPINATHRAO MUNDE: SHRI RAHUL RAMESH SHEWALE: SHRI CHANDRA SEKHAR SAHU: SHRI V.K. SREEKANDAN:

Will the Minister of EDUCATION be pleased to state:

- (a) the number of private universities have been established across the country during the last five years, State-wise;
- (b) whether the University Grants Commission is also considering to grant autonomous status to colleges across the country and if so, the total number of applications received from the colleges across the country and the status thereon as on date;
- (c) whether private universities are empowered to award general degree programme without the specific approval of the UGC, if so, the details thereof;
- (d) whether growing levels of private higher education 'has resulted in a greater access but has made an alarming distress in the quality of the education', if so, the response of the Government thereon;
- (e) whether experts had repeatedly warned of low-quality higher education, and that Indian universities were failing to compete with others globally, if so, the reaction of the Government thereon; and
- (f) the concrete remedial steps taken by the Government to make Indian Universities globally competitive and the success achieved in this regard so far?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (DR. SUBHAS SARKAR)

(a): As per information received from the University Grants Commission (UGC), 140 State Private Universities have been established in the country during the last five years. The Statewise and year-wise details of these Universities are provided at https://www.education.gov.in/parl\_ques.

(b):  UGC  received  328  proposals/applications  for  conferment  of  autonomous  status  from various colleges across the country, during April 2023 to January 2024, of which, 196 proposals have been considered and approved by the UGC. Besides, UGC received 83 proposals/applications for extension of Autonomous status to colleges, of which, 71 have been considered and approved by the UGC.

(c):  The  State  Private  Universities,  covered  under  Section  2(f)  of  the  UGC  Act,  1956,  are empowered to award degrees as specified under Section 22 of the UGC Act with the approval of  Regulatory/Statutory  Authorities,  wherever  required.  Therefore,  no  specific  approval  is required  from  UGC  for  offering  general  degree  programme.  However,  the  approvals  for running professional and medical programmes are given by the respective Statutory Councils.

(d) to (f): UGC has brought out Guidelines for the establishment of Research and Development Cell  (RDC)  in  universities  and  colleges,  to  create  a  conducive  environment  for  enhanced research productivity, encourage collaboration across industry, government, community-based organizations, and agencies at the local, national, and international levels and facilitate greater access  to  research  through  the  mobilisation  of  resources  and  funding.  It  also  aims  to  help universities and colleges to create new knowledge, build a research ecosystem for reliable, impactful, and sustained research output and facilitate intellectual growth that would promote quality research. Presently, more than 1500 RDC have been established in Higher Educational Institutions across the country.

Further, UGC launched the Guidelines for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to offer Internship  /  Apprenticeship  Embedded  Degree  Programme  in  the  year  2020,  to  embed apprenticeship/internship into the degree programme to improve the employability of students.

Apart from above, in order to enable HEIs to engage industry experts and professionals as guest faculty in HEIs to share the wealth of knowledge gained over their long careers with students, the UGC has developed Guidelines for engaging Professors of Practice in universities and colleges. Universities and Colleges have been requested to take the necessary steps to engage Professors of Practice according to the requirement and by following the published guidelines.

UGC  has  also  drafted  Guidelines  on  Sustainable  and  Vibrant  University-Industry Linkage System for Indian Universities with objective to promote Research & Development Thrust through University-Industry (UI) collaboration in the University to address practical R&D problems of high societal relevance by engaging the faculty and students. It also aims to create  training  opportunities  and  apprenticeship  opportunities  in  the  industries/  R&D  labs/ Research organizations/ other organizations including social organizations across the country.

Moreover, Ministry of Education has conducted a series of workshops for prospective institutes to participate in international ranking and also conducted workshops with industries associations to encourage them to participate in employer reputation survey which plays an important role in international ranking. Further, capacity building sessions were also conducted with the ranking organization itself to align HEI's with their parameters.

In addition to above, following initiatives have also been taken:

- i. UGC notified the University Grants Commission (Academic Collaboration between Indian and Foreign Higher Educational Institutions to offer Twinning, Joint Degree and Dual Degree Programmes) Regulations on 02.05.2022.
- ii. Towards implementing the vision of multidisciplinary  education,  the  University Grants  Commission  issued  the  "Guidelines  for  Transforming  Higher  Education Institutions into Multidisciplinary Institutions' on 02.09.2022.

As a result of all these initiatives, the Indian HEIs ranked in 'QS World University Ranking' has increased from 9 in the World University Ranking (WUR) 2014 to 45 in WUR 2024. The number of Indian HEIs has also increased from 49 in 2019 to 91 in 2024 in Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings and India remains the most represented Higher Education system with 148 universities out of 856 featured in the QS World UniversityAsia Ranking 2024 and has also contributed the highest number of 37 new entrants. Further, as per the Elsevier Report, the total number of publications has also increased from 6,61,912 in (2012-2016) to 10,12,624 in (2017-2021).

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