In an email sent directly to the principals, the commission has asked them to attend the workshop on Friday at its headquarters "to clarify the doubts for autonomy and its related regulations."
An invite from the University Grants Commission (UGC) to as many as 20 Delhi University (DU) colleges for a workshop to clarify their stand on its autonomy scheme, created an uproar across the varsity with officials terming it an attempt of "privatisation" and "commercialisation".
In an email sent directly to the principals, the commission has asked them to attend the workshop on Friday at its headquarters "to clarify the doubts for autonomy and its related regulations."
Similarly, an orientation programme was organised by the UGC for education institutes across the country in November, last year. Recently, Hindu College had approached the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry seeking answers to its autonomy related queries. The move triggered students' protest at its campus.
The scheme offers academic and operative freedom to the colleges. It enables a college to design and structure its own courses of study and syllabi to suit local needs, and to devise innovative methods of teaching, examination and evaluation. Any number of colleges under a university, fulfilling a set criteria, can apply for autonomy under the UGC scheme. The HRD ministry had granted autonomy to 60 educational institutions in March.
Among the colleges approached by the UGC are: St Stephens, Miranda House, Sri Ram College of Commerce, Hindu, Daulat Ram, Kamala Nehru, Kalindi, Gargi and Shivaji, among others. "We are clueless about the purpose behind UGC promoting the autonomy move so rigorously. We should be first told that what good change will it bring to the quality of education," said a principal.
However, according to officials at DU, it will also give a free hand to the colleges to make changes in its fee structure. "It will ultimately deprive the students of marginalised section of society from affordable education," said Rajesh Jha, member of DU's Executive Council (EC).
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