Govt revives proposal to set up a private universities

NEW DELHI, May 29: A two-year-old proposal to allow the setting up of private universities is being revived by the United Front Government ...

NEW DELHI, May 29: A two-year-old proposal to allow the setting up of private universities is being revived by the United Front Government which hopes to push through a Bill for the purpose in the next session of Parliament.The Private Universities (Establishment and Regulation) Bill, introduced by the Narasimha Rao government in Parliament in 1995 was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development. The committee presented its report last year.

The Bill, after the incorporation of some of the recommendations of the standing committee, is expected to be put up before the Cabinet in June for approval. The HRD Ministry which wants to limit budgetary allocations to the higher education sector is interested in converting the Bill into a law but opposition from the Left parties may pose problems. The main objective of the Bill is to provide for the establishment of self-financing universities.

Such universities, the proposed law hopes, can play a subsidiary but supportive role to the endeavours of State-run universities in the tertiary education sector.The standing committee report noted that the government was finding it difficult even to maintain the existing complement of institutions with allocations going down over the years. If qualitative improvement in tertiary education was to be achieved, a suitable legal framework was necessary to enable establishment of new institutions with funding from sources other than the conventional source of government funding. It was therefore found imperative to attract private initiative and investment in this sector.

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While the committee recommended the Bill for adoption with some changes, it also spoke of wider consultations in the same breath. Members, while agreeing that there was a need for non-government investment in education, felt that the safeguards in the Bill against commercialisation were totally inadequate. It also said that the argument that private individuals or institutions would like to have a greater say in the management was not acceptable because education was not an area where a promoter or financier with money power should have the final say.The provision in the Bill for winding up of universities has caused a lot of apprehension.

Under the relevant clause, if the sponsoring body proposes the dissolution of a university, all it needs to do is give a notice of six months to the Central government.The standing committee found this inappropriate as the future of the students would be jeopardised. In the eventuality of dissolution, the committee recommended that the government step in and make alternative arrangements.