Varsities to close down centres outside State

Current students won’t be affected

All the State-run universities in Tamil Nadu, offering distance learning programmes, will no longer be admitting students to these programmes through their academic centres operating outside the State of Tamil Nadu, according to sources in the Higher Education Department.

However, students enrolled for various programmes at presentwill not be affected as the centres will be allowed to cater to them until their courses are over.

“There will be no new admissions through these centres hereafter. They will be gradually closed once the enrolled students complete their courses,” a senior official from the department said.

The main reason for the closure is to comply with the regulation imposed by the Distance Education Bureau (DEB) of UGC, particularly through its order in June 2013, which barred all universities from offering degrees in collaboration with private establishments outside their respective jurisdictions.

UGC order

The UGC’s order had pointed out that the award of degrees through these private establishments, branded as academic or learning centres, had compromised the standards of education since the role of the universities in this system was limited to providing syllabus and teaching materials and no efficient mechanisms were in place to monitor the academic standards at these centres.

Despite this, a few universities, including Madurai Kamaraj University, were continuing to offer courses through centres outside Tamil Nadu, as they had temporarily obtained an exemption from the Madras High Court.

Senior officials from the higher education department said the State-run universities cannot continue this for long since it was against UGC’s norms.

The officials, however, stressed that the State universities will continue to operate academic centres anywhere within Tamil Nadu even if it is beyond their jurisdiction, which, for a majority of the universities, is generally a few districts in and around the place they are located.

“This will not be a violation of the 2013 order as one of the clauses provides leeway for it.

“Anyway, a clarification or an exemption, if necessary, will be sought from UGC on this,” an official said.

Financial loss

While agreeing that the closure will help in avoiding malpractices and improve standards, university administrations have also pointed to the possible loss of income.

A majority of these academic centres are operated on a revenue sharing basis. For instance, MKU, which has around 150 such centres outside Tamil Nadu, gets 60% of all the fees collected from the enrolled students while the remaining 40% goes to the private player running the centre.

Though there would be financial loss, officials from Higher Education Department said that revenue from these centres was not collected efficiently in many universities.

In MKU, for instance, steps had now been initiated to collect a pending amount of about ₹15 crore from these centres, of which more than 80% was due from centres outside Tamil Nadu.