Govt to place ceiling on number of affiliate colleges

The Rashtriya Uchattar Shiksha Abhiyan ( National Higher Education Mission ) under the Minister of Human Resources, proposes to put a ceiling of number of colleges to be affiliated to any university at 200.

This has been done following several state universities having a large number of colleges affiliated to a single university. For example Osmania University has 901 colleges affiliated to it while 811 colleges are attached to Pune University. Rashtrusant Tukadoji Maharaj University at Nagpur has 800 colleges affiliated to it and Rajasthan and Mumbai University have 735 and 711 colleges attached to them respectively.

“The average number of affiliated colleges per university is 300. This has negatively affected the academic quality of the university. It is imperative that States create more universities so that affiliation does not result in large number of colleges being tied academically to one university”, an official of the Ministry of Human Resource Development said.

The one lakh crore-worth Rashtriya Uchattar Shiksha Abhiyan, when implemented, will lead to setting up and upgradation of new colleges and universities. The scheme will also facilitate increased number of students from secondary to higher education.

The proposed programme is a new centrally sponsored umbrella scheme aimed at providing strategic funding to state higher and technical institutions. States will develop comprehensive higher education plans that utilise an interconnected strategy to address issues of expansion, equity and excellence together. Central funding will be linked to academic, administrative and financial reforms of state higher education.

This article has been corrected for an editing error.