The score-card says it all

Updated on: Monday, March 22, 2010

The University Grants Commission's guidelines for recognising an institution as a deemed university states that the institution must not only have excelled in its chosen area of higher level of teaching and research, but must also show potential for growing into a university proper, while at the same time not losing focus on its special interest.

How the 15 institutions recognised as deemed universities in Karnataka scored in adhering to these basic guidelines apart from sticking to various other standards, including the research programmes? The recent report of the Tandon Committee, which evaluated the functioning of the deemed universities across the country, throws light on the performance and standard of research programmes of the deemed universities in Karnataka too.

Parameters

Before embarking on the evaluation process, the committee identified nine parameters to assess the performance of each deemed university before deciding on its recommendation about continuation of the deemed university status granted to each institution.

The parameters were: consideration of the idea of a university; to assess whether all their present academic activities could have been carried out without being a deemed university; to evaluate how the status became a stimulus for better performance; aspects of governance; research output and its impact (research publications, books, monographs, patents, etc); doctoral and other research degree programmes; faculty resources; and admission process and award of degrees (see table).

Evaluation process

While evaluating the performance of 126 deemed universities, the committee took cognisance of the fact that the teaching and research are essential ingredients of a university, as distinct from a college or a cluster of colleges which are primarily devoted to preparing students for under-graduate and post-graduate degree or professional career.

Instead of visiting each institution for evaluation based on the identified parameters, the committee prepared a questionnaire containing nearly 100 comprehensive questions related to administration, finance, library, laboratory, academic programmes, admission and examination process, fee structure, research activities, and faculty for eliciting the required information. The committee also considered the UGC reports on infrastructure of deemed universities.

Apart from this, the committee held presentation and face-to-face discussion sessions with the heads or representatives of the 126 deemed universities, including 15 from Karnataka, between August 12, 2009 and October 16, 2009.

The report points out that during the discussion it was noticed that information given by some institutions was incomplete or inaccurate in respect of several key parameters such as faculty strength and qualifications, Ph.D. registrations, and research publications. Interestingly, the report states, many institutions projected publications of their faculty prior to their joining the institutions as their own.

The committee, which used international database to verify the claims of the institutions about their research publications, put forward its findings before the representatives of the institutions during the face-to-face discussions.

It has been found by the committee that with the notable exception of some publicly funded institutions, very few institutions could produce evidence of “quality” research as evidenced from publications in leading high-impact journals in the respective fields. This despite the fact that several private deemed universities have been in existence for a considerable length of time.

“In the light of the fact that many of the private deemed universities are devoted to the areas of engineering, technology, medicine, IT, etc., one would have expected many encouraging examples of transfer of technology, generation of patents and intellectual property. However, this has not been the case,” the report states while expressing serious concern about the quality of Ph.D. programmes offered in many private deemed universities.

Score

Among deemed universities in Karnataka, the publicly-funded Indian Institute of Science (IISc); National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS); Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR); and International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), which are involved in quality research activities, have received a high score between 39 and 43 on the scale of 45 marks.

Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Manipal, is the only private university in Karnataka that has been given “A” grade for quality research activity.

Others deemed universities — Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhan Samsthana (SVYAS), Bangalore; KLE Academy of Higher Education and Research, Belgaum; Jagadguru Sri Shivarathreeshwara University, Mysore; Nitte University, Mangalore; Sri Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research, Kolar; Yenepoya University, Mangalore; BLDE University, Bijapur; Sri Siddartha Academy of Higher Education, Tumkur; Christ College, Bangalore; and Jain University, Bangalore have been given grades such as unsatisfactory, fair or good (see table).

Court to decide

Even though the Union Government has decided to discontinue the deemed university status of 44 institutions, including six from Karnataka that have got low scores, the issue will now be decided by the Supreme Court as many institutions have challenged the constitution of the committee and its finding.

However, many academicians feel that the authorities should consider the recommendation of the committee that evidence of high quality research must be critically ascertained while granting the status of a university and monitoring its performance thereafter.

The score-card says it all

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