UGC roadmap to transform colleges

Hyderabad: The University Grants Commission (UGC) is all set to notify guidelines for the 'Transforming Higher Education Institutions' (HEIs) into multidisciplinary institutions.

The new guidelines are to be notified on Friday. It provides an elaborate detailing of the exercise covering various aspects and the roadmap to be followed to transform HEI's into multidisciplinary institutions.

The new guidelines are part of the National Education Policy -2020 (NEP-2020) to end the fragmentation of higher education by transforming the existing model of higher education into multidisciplinary universities, colleges and clusters and knowledge hubs.

The new guidelines propose three types of institutions. Multidisciplinary research-intensive universities, multidisciplinary teaching-intensive universities, and degree-awarding multi-disciplinary autonomous colleges (smaller than a university).

The guidelines said that the multidisciplinary teaching and research universities will have over 3,000 students. It said that by 2035 all affiliated colleges should become degree-awarding multi-disciplinary autonomous institutions, it is necessary to develop a roadmap to transform all affiliated colleges to attain the status, either alone or through collaboration with nearby institutions in the form of clusters or by becoming a constituent part of a university as envisioned in NEP 2020. The affiliated colleges need to achieve the degree-awarding status by becoming large multidisciplinary autonomous colleges or should become part of the cluster to become a large multi-disciplinary higher education institute.

The policy also suggests opening departments needed for multidisciplinary subjects, including languages, literature, music, philosophy, Indology, art, dance, theatre, education, mathematics, statistics, pure and applied sciences, sociology, economics, sports, translations and interpretation. The guidelines further speak of strengthening institutions by adding departments in multiple subjects from humanities, social sciences, arts, science, and sports.

The UGC guidelines also proposed the model of a cluster of private and government colleges with the Board of Directors of three-year tenure for their smooth functioning. Further, it has outlined the composition of the academic council, finance committee, approval process, consolidation of the cluster colleges and the operational requirements for the same. The new guidelines also allow the merger of higher education institutions under the same management.