The conferment of autonomous status to three engineering colleges has renewed debate over the propriety of granting independent control to educational institutions without the State’s concurrence.
The government’s admission of its minimal role in the process has raised eyebrows with a section of academicians viewing it as an “open invitation for more colleges to seek autonomy without a screening process.”
Opinion is divided among those who feel the State’s powers have been usurped by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and others who maintain that the government could exercise its authority within the provisions of the regulations.
The University Laws (Third Amendment) Act 2014, passed by the State Legislature, was virtually overridden by the UGC (Conferment of Autonomous Status Upon Colleges and Measures for Maintenance of Standards in Autonomous Colleges) Regulations, 2018, in granting autonomy for the self-financing engineering colleges.
It is also felt that the Autonomy Approval Committee, formed under provisions of the University Act, has been bypassed while conferring autonomy to the engineering colleges. Under the present government, the panel met only once in 2019 when it decided to defer decision on granting autonomy to over 10 aided arts and science colleges until incorporating changes in the Act aimed at ironing out anomalies.
A committee constituted by the Kerala State Higher Education Council (KSHEC) in 2018 to study the functioning of autonomous colleges had observed that the UGC Act which empowered the apex body to fix education standards did not provide for issuing regulations that usurped the provisions of the University Act enacted by the State legislature. Besides, a university is a subject that figures in the Constitution’s State list.
“By claiming helplessness on the issue, the government has meekly surrendered before attempts to scuttle the university system. Besides, the State can also play an instrumental role in the inspection process by pinpointing inadequacies regarding requisite permanent staff and other aspects,” an academician said.
However, C. Padmanabhan, general secretary of All Kerala Private College Teachers Association (AKPCTA), which has been in the forefront of agitations against granting autonomy, said that the government had its hands tied by the regulations laid down by the UGC that were in line with Centre’s policy. The norms that were legally binding for each State were likely to open the floodgates for many more institutions to make a beeline for the status.
