Four more deemed varsities under Centre's scanner

Four private deemed universities of the State have now been put under the scanner for not maintaining the required standards even as six other institutions are set to lose their deemed university status subject to the order of the Supreme Court.

Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhan Samsthana (SVYAS), Bangalore; KLE Academy of Higher Education and Research, Belgaum; Jagadguru Sri Shivarathreeshara University, Mysore; and Nitte University, Mangalore, have now been put in the “category-II” for monitoring their standard. These four institutions are among the 44 deemed universities that need to take a series of corrective steps for retaining their deemed university status in the next three years.

The report of the Tandon Committee that reviewed the deemed universities, details of which have now been made public, has pointed out several deficiencies in these four universities while recommending to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to give a three-year deadline for these institutions to raise their standards to the required levels.

Meanwhile, of the 11 private deemed universities in the State, the Committee has found that only Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Manipal, had satisfied the criteria to be granted for the deemed to be universities.

Also, the committee has rated highly the Bangalore-based public deemed universities such as Indian Institute of Science (IISc); National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS); Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR); and Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT).

Already, the MHRD has decided to de-recognise 44 other deemed universities across the country, including six in the State. As per the report, except MAHE, Nitte University and SVYAS, all other eight private deemed universities could have carried out their academic activities without being a deemed university as that status did not become a stimulus for them to better performance.

All these six deemed universities shortlisted for de-recognition have received low rating for the activities in the areas of research output and its impact, doctoral and other research programmes and quality of and innovations in teaching-learning process as they failed to fulfil the requirements in this regard as per the UGC Guidelines-2000.