MHRD Policy Changes for Deemed University Off-Campuses and Off-shore Campuses

If the Government gets its ways, Deemed Universities in Indian will not need prior government approvals before starting off-campus and off-shore campuses. The HRD Ministry has recommended some changes in the policies that have been laid down to grant the deemed status as well as for starting off-campuses and off-shore campuses.

The Government has recommended a total of 30 changes in the rules and norms for deemed universities. These include the removal of rules like the university must have functioned as a deemed university for at least 5 years, it must offer PG courses, must have required financial backing and must take prior government approval.

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New Rules Proposed by the HRD Ministry for Deemed Universities:

• The government has proposed a new rule that will make it compulsory for a deemed university to have at least 5,000 students enrolled along with a minimum of 250 regular teachers.
• The HRD ministry has also recommended that the rule that required a deemed university’s board of management to have a government representative, should be removed.

Changes Proposed by the HRD Ministry for Deemed Universities:

• Currently, the norms require an institution to be accredited by NBA or NAAC for three consecutive cycles in order to be eligible for the deemed university tag. The Ministry wants this accreditation requirement to be reduced to two cycles.
• Instead of the rule to have a minimum number of full-time faculty, the Ministry is proposing a mandatory 20:1 student-faculty ratio.
• Currently, the rules state that deemed universities cannot charge, demand, accept a donation or capitation fee for admission. The HRD Ministry recommended that this rule should be removed.
• The Ministry also recommended that the rule stating that any institution applying for deemed university tag should not have violated rules laid down by the UGC rule in the past 5 years should also be removed.
• According to the current rules, UGC has the discretion to implement any upward revision of the corpus of a deemed university. However, the Ministry wants that this should be discontinued.

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If these recommendations are accepted, deemed universities that have highest NAAC grading or have highest NBA grading for two-thirds of its courses and figures secured rank within the top 100 NIRF ranks will be able to start their off-campuses as well as off-shore campuses without any prior approvals.