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UGC to offer academic support to unaided colleges

By Our Special Correspondent

Coimbatore June 6. The University Grants Commission is planning to support unaided colleges (self-financing institutions) "academically", its vice-chairman, V.Rajasekaran Pillai, said today.

Of 13,000 arts and science colleges in the country, only 5,000 had UGC support. "All others have been established under the agreement that they would not seek any assistance from the Government," he said speaking to presspersons.

However, as the present access rate to higher education was only six per cent and it was the Centre's priority to raise it to 15 per cent by the end of this plan period, the commission now decided to strengthen the unaided institutions. "We have planned to identify institutions which are good and offer them fellowship, quality improvement and refresher courses for teachers."

He said it was a paradox that some institutions, which had excellent infrastructure, did not have "quality" teachers, while government colleges with poor infrastructure had "excellent" teachers.

A committee had been constituted to identify good colleges. He said at least five per cent of the unaided colleges in Tamil Nadu could be deemed "good" and deserved such support.

Dr. Pillai said the UGC was focussing on two schemes. The first was to identify 100 colleges "with potential for excellence" for a period of five years up to the end of the Plan period .The criterion was that they should be assessed and accredited by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council and should be spread across the country. These institutions would get Rs. 1 crore grant in addition to existing development grants. The grant would be specifically for "quality innovation", for which they had been recognised, and the main objective would be improvement in undergraduate teaching. In order to avoid regional imbalance, 20 to 30 per cent of the total amount earmarked for the purpose would be set apart so that it could be utilised to support "quality institutions" as and when they obtain NAAC accreditation. Another programme was to provide guidelines to "deemed-to-be universities". A committee headed by K. Venkatasubramanian, Planning Commission member, came out with the guidelines. Under this, only institutions with the NAAC accreditation could apply for deemed status.

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