Amid reports of students taking to the streets in protest against the possibility of 44 educational institutions losing their deemed university status, Union Minister for Human Resource Development (HRD) Kapil Sibal on Tuesday said the affected students would still get their degrees whatever be the fate of their universities.
Task force report
At a press conference here, Mr. Sibal said the Ministry had not derecognised any institution.
All that the government had done was accept the report of the task force that looked into the functioning of all deemed universities. The task force had recommended that these institutions be derecognised as they did not meet the standards.
“The matter is in court and I do not want to say anything right now. But I would like to assure all the students that no one will be adversely affected by the findings of the task force. Students will get a university degree,” the Minister said.
As per the affidavit submitted by the Ministry in the Supreme Court, an estimated 1,19,363 students enrolled in the 44 institutions at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, 2,124 doing M.Phil and Ph.D and 74,808 students pursuing distance education programmes would be able to continue their studies as the colleges would continue to be affiliated to the universities to which they were earlier affiliated.
Provision may go
Given the controversies that surrounded the deemed university system, the Minister hinted that the provision of granting deemed university status under Section 3 of the University Grants Commission Act may be done away with when the higher education system is restructured.
