Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Rule on conducting all-India common entrance test flouted

• Number of students admitted higher than those who had appeared for entrance test
• Non-adherence to guideline detrimental to students' interests: report

Bangalore: The guideline of the University Grants Commission (UGC) to conduct a common entrance test for selection of students for admission to deemed universities has been ignored by many institutions.

This aspect of violation of UGC guidelines by the deemed universities has been revealed in a recent report of the Tandon Committee, which reviewed deemed universities across the country and recommended de-recognition of 44 universities for having failed to adhere to most of the criteria stipulated for deemed university status. The UGS guideline states: “Admissions shall be on an all-India basis to the identical courses in all the deemed-to-be universities through a common entrance test conducted either by the UGC or by an institution/agency identified and approved by the UGC. This shall apply also to those institutions which have already been given the deemed-to-be university status.”

However, the committee has found that this mandatory guideline has not been followed, although most institutions claimed that they conducted their own “All-India Entrance Examination” while often it was restricted to limited geographical locations/regions.

The committee also pointed out that often it was noticed that the number of students admitted through such examinations was disproportionately high in relation to the number of candidates appearing in the examinations and thus making the competitiveness and the credibility of these examinations questionable.
Consequently, the report states, many deemed universities ended up admitting students of lesser competence.

Agreeing that the conferment of deemed university status was meant to free them from unnecessary constraints and give the institutions freedom and flexibility in matters of admission, intake, capacity, programmes and fee structure, the committee said the freedom should have been exercised in a responsible manner and a major departure from this would be detrimental to students' interest and quality of education.
In its recommendation, the committee suggested to the Union Government to put in a place a mechanism for strict compliance of UGC guidelines.

The report has stated that introduction of a centralised examination for all institutions of higher education, public or private, will obviate the scope of malpractice reportedly prevalent on a wide scale.