Eight institutions ‘pass’ deemed university test

 Even as the Supreme Court is hearing the deemed university case, eight of the 44 found deficient on certain counts have made it to the 'deemed university' list after rectifying the faults pointed out by the Tandon committee in 2009.

In its comprehensive review of 126 deemed universities, the Tandon committee had found only 38 (group A) fit to qualify as deemed universities while 44 (group B) were found deficient in some parameters that needed to be rectified. Another 44, put in group C, were found totally unfit to be deemed universities. The affected universities went to the Supreme Court and the matter is being heard.Meanwhile, eight group B universities have made it to the A list. This includes Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore; SRM University, Chennai; NITTE, Mangalore; KLE, Belgaum; Bharati Vidyapeeth, Pune; HBNI (Homi Bhabha), Mumbai; Sathyabama University, Chennai; and Avinashilingam Institute of Higher Education for Women & Home Sciences, Coimbatore.

The review committee made an assessment of progress made by these universities and found that substantial improvements were made, be it conforming to UGC guidelines, governance, quality and innovations in teaching, research output, faculty resources, doctoral and other research degree programmes and admission process and award of degrees.

It is not that these universities came up with flying colours on all parameters but marked improvement was noted in key parameters. The minimum score needed for category A status is 30 and all eight of them scored 31.

In case of Vellore Institute, it was found there was noticeable change in number of faculty with PhD degrees. Also a perceptible improvement in research output had taken place. Similarly, in case of SRM University, research output had increased as well as the number of students registered for PhD.

The key parameter was governance of these universities as it was found that most of them were run by family members of promoters. The review committee did not comment on governance aspect of most of the deemed universities, except Bharati Vidyapeeth where it found a real change in the administrative structure.