SC ruling on open university degrees

Updated on: Friday, March 20, 2009

The Supreme Court (SC) recently came down heavily on institutions conferring distance education degrees in an erratic manner. The SC has maintained that postgraduate degrees awarded by open universities under the distance education programme to students who did not have the basic three-year degree could not be treated on a par with conventional postgraduate degrees.

The ruling comes in the wake of the Madras High Court judgment that declared N Ramesh as ineligible for the post of principal, on account of acquiring an MA degree from Annamalai without having a three-year graduation degree. The ruling, in fact, has opened a Pandora’s Box.

First, there is confusion about whether the judgment is applicable to degrees offered by open universities or those acquired through distance mode. Moolchand Sharma, lawyer and vicechairperson, University Grants Commission (UGC), explains, “There is a confusion regarding the way education is imparted through correspondence, open universities or distance education. These three may coincide at some point when it comes to delivery of content but these are different concepts and play different roles.” Delhi University’s School of Open Learning (SOL), too, offers correspondence courses.

Explaining its position in the context of the judgment, H C Pokhariyal, executive director, SOL, said, “We offer programmes as per the norms set by UGC, hence, students should not feel that their degree’s value is lesser than the conventional one.”

Coming back to the verdict, does it mean that degrees offered by open universities will henceforth not be on a par with regular universities? V N Rajshekharan Pillai, while clarifying the stand of open.

SC ruling on open university degrees

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