BLOG LASHING-Deemed Universities…

BLOG LASHING:

Well,ppl,time to personalize this blog,to apart from updating stuff w.r.t, to the Hyderabad campus,and GITAM in general,I decided to make this blog a little more personal by starting a new category/segment,called BLOG lashing,this is the place wherein I am gona give out my radical views on hot issues,topics,and shed light( I repeat,my point of view),on some steaming hot issues,or stuff which have been frozen for ages..the nomenclature of this segment isn't my own creation to start with,we have always had a phrase called whip lashing,and as the use of whips,slowly reduced the phrase was transformed to tongue lashing,but in this era of wide spread mass electronic media and the exponentially increasing telecom sector,we text(sms) more often than talk,and that gave birth to thumb lashing,and finally,as of now we end up with BLOG LASHING,a new avatar of the popular term,whiplash,taking a cue from Samsung,you can surely ask “Next Is What??”,as simple as sugar,I haven't got a clue,but  I am pretty sure BLOG lashing is the way to go !!

“DEEMED” UNIVERSITIES:

With close to around 129 deemed universities,a student is often in a dilemma,while applying to them,the first question which arises is are theses Deemed Universities,worth the capitation  fees?

Well,there are some institutions,which can bee looked upon,and drawn inspiration from,in order to et standards for a future deemed university,some are listed below:

• BITS(all of them)
• IIIT(most of them)
• TISS(not,into engg.studies)
• DA-IICT
• SHASTRA
• Satyabhama

here you go,out of close to 60 odd universities,deal with Engg while the rest are distributed,among dental,medical,and sciences;I could just come up with around 10 I believe,even before you can point me out,I deliberately left out institutions like Amity,Vit,Mit,e.t.c,don't get me wrong,they are excellent in providing infrastructure,facilities and stuff,but heck ,they are also the most notorious of the institutes(ppl do differ on this view,I follow suite at times).

CATERGORIZATION:

Most of the deemed universities can be classified in accordance with their status symbol,you have plenty of mags,surveys which give out ranking,the message is clear DONT TRUST THEM,they are seriously not worth it,except a couple of good surveys,which are very rare.So simply put,you can categorize them based on the time of their foundation,and not on the year,when they acquired the deemed University status.So the older the institution,the obvious choice.

HISTORY:

The first institutes to be coffered with this honour..

• the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore,
• the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI)
• The Gurukul Kangri Vishwavidyalaya, Haridwar.
• the Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmadabad.
• the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai.
• the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani.
• the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad.

From 1956 until 1995, there were only 36 deemed universities. Their number rose to 103 by February 2008.  In between March 1995 and March 2008 nearly 400 applications were filed seeking deemed university status. At the time of the freeze ordered by Kapil Sibal the total number of deemed universities stood at 127, of which the highest number, 29, is in Tamil Nadu. Maharashtra has 21 and Karnataka 15. Many of these universities are a far cry from the original concept.

 

ARE THEY WORTH IT?

well in my view most of the deemed universities,charge exorbitant fees,which under most of the circumstances are not at all justified,in the last decade and a half,most of the deemed universities came into existent,and are currently turning out to be nothing institutional,but money minting machines,for the political Between 2000 and 2005, about 40 institutions were notified as deemed universities. Many of them were without any academic achievements whatsoever and were hastily conferred the status of deemed universities.

In Prof. Yashpal vs. State of Chhattisgarh [2005 (5)SCC420], the Supreme Court resolved the problem of the creation of 112 private universities by a single Act of the legislature in Chhattisgarh.

Separate Acts for each university is the norm that was violated. All such universities were either on paper or functioned from a single-room apartment. Most of them opened their branches in other States without even establishing their campuses in Chhattisgarh. The court struck down the State Act as ultra vires the Constitution and directed that the universities so created could be considered for affiliation with existing universities in the State.

THE CHENNAI CONNECTION:

The  corrupt and non-transparent admission system pursued by many of the self-financing institutions that offer engineering and medical courses in Tamil Nadu has come centre stage once again, thanks to a sting operation by a private television channel. It exposed the managements of two self-financing deemed medical universities in Chennai, one of which is reportedly owned by a Union Minister, demanding huge sums as capitation fees from seat-aspirants in violation a Supreme Court judgment.

Twenty-nine deemed universities are now functioning in the State and applications for the status from 39 institutions are pending with the UGC. Ever since the governments at the Centre and in the States started abandoning their responsibilities in respect of education, particularly higher/professional education, in the 1980s, Tamil Nadu has become the hunting ground of greedy, profit-seeking private investors in education.

KARNATAKA:

Karnataka has 15 deemed universities. They include the Indian Institute of Science, the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences and the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Scientific Research and 12 institutions run by private managements. A number of deemed universities have sprung up since 2006: the KLE Academy of Higher Education and Research, the Sri Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research, Yenepoya University, BLDE University, the Sri Siddhartha Academy of Higher Education, Nitte University, JSS University, Christ University and Jain University.

ONE HELL OF AN EXAMPLE:

 the State government’s efforts since 2007 to stop the granting of deemed university status has not been respected by the UGC. For instance, in connection with the conferment of deemed status to Christ College (Autonomous), the Principal Secretary, Higher Education, in a letter dated April 15, 2008, wrote to the Secretary, UGC: “The Christ College (Autonomous), Bangalore, has requested for issue of No Objection Certificate from the State government for confirmation of deemed university status. On this issue, the State government has arrived at a decision not to recommend any institution for conferment of deemed university status. Hence, the State government does not recommend the case of Christ College for conferment of deemed university status. I request that the opinion of the State government may be placed before the commission.”

CONCLUSION:

The final view,“deemed university” status brought to the managements of these institutions unfettered freedom to exploit gullible parents. All this they could do flouting UGC guidelines and the regulations of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). This is not to say that all these recently chosen deemed universities are bad. There are among them institutions that, though small in number, boast adequate infrastructure, efficient faculty and fair financial dealings.

 

The Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. It took several decades and many achievements for institutions like this to get deemed university status.

GITAM???

Where does GITAM stand in all this mess???

well the GITAM vizag campus might get a go ahead(From my point of view),but I think there's gotta  be plenty of development before with respect to the Hyderabad campus.

Regards,

Paz.

With  some direct  extracts from:

The Frontline,vol 26,no 14 ,Time for overhaul,deemed Universities minting money,factory of engineers?(Thanks rancho.:P),Diluting the value of other deemed universities.

More on it here by-R. RAMACHANDRAN

Picture courtesy:The Frontline,vol 26,no 14

Even before ppl start asking me let me answer,I did read all the articles mentioned above,ages ago in the book form itself,and re-read a couple in the e-format too!!!