Full Form of UGC – University Grants Commission

In line with the UGC Act 1956, the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Government of India established the University Grants Commission of India (UGC India), a statutory organization responsible for coordinating, determining, and maintaining standards in higher education.

As a result of this, universities in India receive recognition, and funding is disbursed to them. Though New Delhi is its headquarters, there are also six regional offices located at:

• Pune
• Bhopal
• Kolkata
• Hyderabad
• Guwahati, and
• Bangalore.

In India, the government is considering a plan to replace it with the HECI, a new regulatory agency. UGC offers doctorate fellowships to anybody who passes the Joint Residency Examination (JRF) portion of the National Eligibility Examination (NET). The commission typically spends 725 crores (US$100 million) a year for doctorate and post-doctoral scholarships.

History of UGC

UGC was established in 1945 to serve as a coordinating body for Aligarh, Banaras, and Delhi Central Universities. In 1947, its mandate was expanded to cover all Indian institutions.

In August 1949, a proposal was made to re-establish the UGC in a manner comparable to the United Kingdom’s University Grants Committee. To report on Indian university education and advise improvements and expansions, was the mandate of the University Education Commission, which was chaired by S. Radhakrishnan.

The U.S. government determined in 1952 that all funds to colleges and universities should be administered by the University Grants Commission (UGC). The Minister of Education, Natural Resources, and Scientific Research, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, then conducted an inauguration on December 28, 1953.

The UGC became a legally recognized organization in India with the adoption of the “University Grants Commission Act, 1956” in November 1956.
During1994 and 1995, the UGC has decentralized its operations. It did by creating six major regional centers, which are located at:

• Pune
• Hyderabad
• Kolkata
• Bhopal
• Guwahati, and
• Bangalore.

United General Consultative Organization (UGC) headquarters are located in New Delhi at Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg and Feroze Shah Road as well as the University of Delhi’s South Campus.

The Indian government announced a National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) under the University Grants Commission (UGC) in December 2015, with the goal of ranking all educational institutions by April 2016.

Former NAAC director D.P. Singh was named chairman for a five-year term in December 2017, replacing UGC member Virander Singh Chauhan, who had served in the role since Ved Prakash retired in April 2017.

Types of Institutions of Higher Education by UGC

The UGC has jurisdiction over the following categories of institutions. The very first one called the Central Universities, or Union Universities, the Ministry of Education’s Department of Higher Education was given authority over Central Universities by an act of parliament in the country’s constitution.

The UGC issued a list of core universities on December 12th, 2018 that included 49 institutions. State universities are managed by the state governments of India’s states and territories and are often founded by an act of the local legislative assembly. The University Grants Commission (UGC) now recognizes 370 institutions of higher learning around the country.

In the UGC’s database, the University of Mumbai, the University of Madras, and the University of Calcutta all have founding dates of 1857. For the most part, State Universities are affiliated institutions since they oversee a large number of associated schools.

Many of which are situated in rural areas that generally offer a wide range of undergraduate programs, but may also offer graduate programs. With the consent of the affiliated university, more prestigious institutions may even provide Ph.D. programs in certain departments.

Deemed university, or “Deemed to be University,” is a status of autonomy conferred by the Department of Higher Education on the suggestion of the UGC, under Section 3 of the UGC Act. The University Grants Commission (UGC) has designated 123 institutions of higher learning as of October 6, 2017.

According to this list, the Indian Institute of Science was the first institution to be given presumed university status, on May 12th, 1958. In many situations, the UGC’s listing includes information on many institutions. An illustration of this is the inclusion of the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research as well as other institutes under Homi Bhabha National Institute’s heading.

UGC’s Authority

The UGC has approval authority over private universities. They can provide diplomas, but they are not authorized to establish associated colleges outside of their campus. As of 6 October 2017, there were 282 private universities on the UGC list.

In 2009, Kapil Sibal, the Union Minister of Human Resource Development, announced that the Indian government was considering closing the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) in favour of a new regulatory agency with broader authority.

Future of UGC

Under the Higher Education and Research Bill of 2011, the UGC would be replaced with a National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER) “for determination, coordination, maintenance and ongoing development of standards in higher education and research.”

The bill aims to incorporate the University Grants Commission (UGC) as well as other academic bodies under this new entity. Medical and legal organizations would be spared from the proposed merger since they are responsible for “setting basic criteria for medical and legal education leading to professional practice.” Local governments in the Indian states of Bihar, Kerala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal are opposed to the law, although it has garnered general support.

The UGC Act, 1956 was set to be repealed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development on June 27th, 2018. A bill to dissolve the University Grants Commission (UGC) was anticipated to be tabled in Parliament’s 2018 monsoon session. According to the law, India’s Higher Education Commission (HEC) will be established (HECI).

In Conclusion

After facing stiff political resistance, this version of the law was scrapped and rewritten in 2019 in an attempt to get bipartisan support. The UGC will still be around by the middle of 2020. Now, the Ministry of Human Resource Development [MHRD] got baptized into the Ministry of Education (MOE) and has been addressed with this name since then.