Governor P. Sathasivam will take a decision on more than 50 off-campus centres functioning within the jurisdiction of the Mahatma Gandhi University after hearing the stakeholders at Raj Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday.
Mr. Sathasivam, who is also the Chancellor of the varsity, had earlier directed the Vice Chancellor Prof. Babu Sebastian to comply with the judgments (dated February 13, 2015 and March 23, 2015) of the Kerala High Court to close down the off-campus centres outside the institution’s territorial jurisdiction.
As per the university estimates, nearly 55 off-campus centres are now functioning within its jurisdiction that include districts of Kottayam, Ernakulam, Idukki and Kuttanad taluk of Alappuzha district and Ranni, Thiruvalla and Kozhencharry taluks of Pathanamthitta district. Seventeen centres among this were sanctioned in 2001; eleven in 2005; and 25 in 2013. Senior officials admitted that at least three off-campus centres functioning outside the varsity’s territorial jurisdiction were shifted to locations within the purview of the university to overcome the hurdles following the crackdown on such centres by the University Grants Commission. The ownership of these centres functioning in Thrissur, Thiruvananthapuram and Palakkad was changed and moved to two new locations in Kottayam district and one in Ernakulam respectively, they said.
The Secretary, Higher Education, is expected to present the government’s view on the existing off-campus centres at the hearing convened by the Chancellor. The Higher Education department had opposed a decision taken at the Syndicate meet held on January 17, 2013, to sanction 77 new off-campus centres while stating that the authorities failed to get prior permission from the government. The UGC’s Distance Education Bureau in its letter dated November 28, 2013, had requested the university to close down all study centres for offering programmes through distance mode opened in violation of the UGC policies.
