One deemed university from Tamil Nadu has scored 0 out of a maximum of 45 on the grading scale prepared by the expert committee constituted by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). More than 20 institutions from all over the country have single-digit scores.
A copy of the report obtained by The Hindu shows a clear difference between universities in each of the three categories — those that satisfy most criteria for their status, those that need to improve and those that fail to satisfy most criteria. The MHRD has been ordered to place the contents of the report online at the earliest by the Supreme Court.
The highest score given to a few universities, including the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), BITS, Pilani and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), is 41, the lowest is 32 and the average 37.
The highest in the second category is 29 and the lowest 19, while the highest score in the third category is 14.
The criteria used for the scoring have nine parameters, including considerations of the idea of a university, aspects of governance, faculty resources, research output and admission processes. The universities have been letter graded on each parameter with “A” representing 5 marks, “B” 3 marks, “C” 1 mark and “F” 0 marks. The maximum possible is 45 and the minimum 0.
The affidavit filed by the MHRD in the Supreme Court states that site visits were not made part of the evaluation process. The feedback provided by the UGC committees using site visits had tallied with the information provided by the institutions in response to the questionnaire of the Tandon Committee in 47 cases and this had shown that site visits were not required and the committee had decided to concentrate on standards of higher education and research, the affidavit said.
However, there seem to be mistakes in the tallying process in the report sourced by The Hindu . Universities which had informally obtained copies of the report said the signatures of the committee members showed the report was final, and expressed surprise at the errors.
For instance, the scores obtained by IISc add up to 43, while the aggregate marked on the report is 41. Similarly, the scores of SASTRA University, Thanjavur, add up to 22 but the aggregate given in the report is 21.
SASTRA University vice-chancellor R. Sethuraman said the scores assigned were “arbitrary.”
