Last week saw two top institutions in the middle of a disagreement over an undergraduate programme. Under pressure from University Grants Commission (UGC), Delhi University had no option but to scrap the four-year programme and revert to the previous three-year structure.
In freewheeling this week, let us explore the roots and working of the UGC. The University Grants Commission has two major responsibilities – one is to provide funds and the other being to determine the maintenance of standards in higher educational institutions. The UGC is responsible for the university education standards in India. It also plays a role in advising the Central and State governments on the measures to improve the university education.
The beginningLooking back, the credit for the present higher education system should be given to Mountstuart Elphinstone. Thanks to the efforts of Lord Macaulay, Sir Charles Wood, the universities of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras was set up in 1857 followed by Allahabad in 1887. It was broadly agreed that an articulated scheme of education from the primary school to the university was necessary. The next major step was the setting up of the Inter-University Board in 1925 with the aim to promote university activities.
The Central Advisory Board of Education submitted the Sargeant Report on the post-war Educational development in India in 1944. This report was initiated to formulate a national system of education. This report recommended the University Grants Committee and thus it was formed, the next year to monitor the Universities of Aligarh, Banaras and Delhi. Later other universities also came under the purview of the University Grants Committee. It is said that the life of the University Grants Committee was short-lived.
Post-Independence, a University Education Commission was set up with Dr.S.Radhakrishnan at the helm. The job assigned to this Commission was to report on the Indian University education and suggest improvements to suit the needs of the country. The recommendations included that a University Grants Committee to be reconstituted on the model of the University Grants Commission of the United Kingdom. After a lot of research work and thinking, the University Grants Commission was inaugurated by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in 1953.
Three years after, UGC became a statutory body of the Government of India.
The UGC has six regional centres in Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bhopal, Guwahati and Bangalore with its headquarters in New Delhi.
