At least 1,19,363 students at the under-graduate and post-graduate levels; another 2,124 pursuing research in M.Phil and Ph.D programmes and an estimated 74,808 pursue distance education programmes will be directly affected by the decision,

The government was forced to take this decision after it was recommeded by a review committee of experts led by Professor P. N. Tandon, formerly of the AIIMS and an ex-president of the Indian National Science Academy. The main objective of the main Tandon committee, which was created in June 2009, was to review functioning of the existing deemed to be universities, and ensure that standards of higher education and research are maintained by such institutions as to justify their continuance as deemed to be universities”.

The committee invited all 130 deemed-to-be universities for “face-to-face discussions” during August-September 2009.

According to 11-page affdavit filed to the SC through HRD ministry’s representative Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium, of the 130 invited, 126 attended the sessions and it divided the status of 126 institutes into three categories.

The work of the last category of 44 institutes was termed “neither on past performance nor on their promise for the future have they attributed to retain their status as deemed to be universities”, according to an Indian Express report.

The committee said 38 institutes justify with their achievements, performance and potential to continue as deemed universities while 44 were found to be “deficient in some aspects which need to be rectified over a three-year period suggested by the committee”. Another 44 were recommended for derecognition.

Tamil Nadu tops this list with 16, including one sponsored by the government. Karnataka follows with six and Uttar Pradesh is at No. 3 with four. Haryana, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan have three each while Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Orissa, Puducherry, Bihar and Delhi have one each which will be closed.

Three government-sponsored institutes recommended for closure are the Nava Nalanda Mahavira in Bihar which has 525 students including 35 Ph.D scholars, Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu with 61 post-graduate students and the one at Janpath, New Delhi.

Aberrations found in the functioning of the 44 institutes are “undesirable management architecture” of families rather than professionals running them; violation of principles and guidelines of excellence in teaching and research or innovations and “engaged in thoughtless introduction of unrelated programmes and proliferation of degrees”; very little evidence of noticeable efforts in regard to emerging areas of knowledge; “little evidence of commitment” towards research or ability to draw institutional or principal investigator-based research funding on competitive terms, UG and PG level programmes “fragmented” with “concocted nomenclatures”, abuse of freedom and flexibility in matters of admission and fee structure.

“Many institutions which attained deemed university status from being a college increased their intake capacity disproportionately and in some cases exponentially in relation to the qualified faculty strength and other academic infrastructure,” the affidavit stated.

A Task Force is preparing a plan to “safeguard” interests of students enrolled in the institutes, the affidavit stated.

The below-par institutions will be required to revert to their status as an “affiliated college” of the statutory state university or state medical or dental universities concerned so that students would be able to complete ongoing courses and obtain degrees from the affiliating universities, the affidavit stated.

The matter comes up for further hearing on January 25.

The ‘doomed’ university list

The deemed-to-be-universities off government list

Tamil Nadu

St Peter’s Institute of Higher Education and Research, Chennai

Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu

Meenakshi Academy of Higher Education and Research, Chennai

Chettinad Academy of Research and Education, Padur

Dr MGR Educational and Research Institute, Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education, Virudhunagar, Tamil Nadu

Periyar Maniammai Institute of Science and Technology, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu

Academy of Maritime Education and Training, Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Vel’s Institute of Science, Technology and Advanced studies (VISTAS), Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Karpagam Academy of Higher Educatioin, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

Vel Tech Rangarajan Dr Sagunthala R&D Institute of Science & Technology, Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Vinayaka Mission’s Research Foundation, Salem, Tamil Nadu

Bharath Institute of Higher Education & Research, Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Ponnaiyah Ramajayam Institute of Science and Technology, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu

Karnataka

Christ College, Bangalore

Sri Devraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research, Kolar

Yenepoya University, Mangalore

BLDE University, Bijapur

Sri Siddhartha Academy of Higher education, Tumkur

Jain University, Bangalore

Haryana

Lingaya’s University, Faridabad

Maharishi Matkandeshwar University, Ambala

Manav Rachna International University, Faridabad

Uttar Pradesh

Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida

Shobit Institute of Engineering and Technology, Meerut

Santosh University, Ghaziabad

Nehru Gram Bharati Vishwavidyalaya, Allahabad

Maharashta

Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences, Satara

D.Y. Patil Medical College, Kolhapur

Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, Pune

Rajasthan

Janardhan Rai Nagar Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, Udaipur

Institute of Advanced Studies in Education of Gandhi Vidya Mandir, Sardarshahr

Mody Institute of Technology and Science, Sikar

Uttarakhand

HIHT University, Dehradun

Gurukul Kangri Vishwavidyalaya, Hardwar

Graphic Era University, Dehradun

From other states

Vignan’s Foundation for Science Technology and Research, Guntur

Siksha Anusandhan, Bhubaneswar, Orissa

Sumandeep Vidyapeeth, Vadodara, Gujarat

* Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth, Puducherry

Other deemed universities sponsored by the government

Nava Nalanda, Nalanda, Bihar
Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development, Sriperumbudur, Tamilnadu
National Museum Institute of the History of Art, Conservation and Museology, Delhi

The faculty associations of IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore and IIM Kolkata have passed separate resolutions, looking for scrapping of the test. A few thousand students could not write the test due to virus attack and other technical problems.

Discontented over the manner the CAT was conducted, the Human Resource Development Ministry has convened a meeting of IIM directors on Wednesday to communicate its concerns.

Higher Education Secretary Vibha Puri Das will preside over the meeting of IIM directors to talk about the issue in detail, a Human Resource Development Ministry official said.

Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal has previously expressed displeasure over students facing difficulty during the computerized test which was blemished by glitches from its commencement. The issue was raised in Parliament when BJP members criticized the government for the disaster.

The test, which was supposed to be taken by 2.41 lakh students, was conducted by an American firm Prometric in a spread out manner over 11 days. However, all candidates failed to appear in the test due to the “virus attack”.

Nevertheless, IIM, Bangalore, Director Prof Pankaj Chandra said the first session of the test was a “smooth affair”. “It has been a smooth affair. There was no server crash throughout the exam,” he told PTI.

Asked in relation to the reports of technical glitches, he said, “There might be a few instances of virus attack in the computers at certain centers. But at this stage I cannot substantiate”.

Meanwhile, Ulhas Vairagkar, director of the TIME institute, a preparatory school for IIM aspirants, said, “We got calls from students in six cities saying they were not able to give the examination since the computer system crashed. The students have been told they be able to take an additional time slot”.

It was the first time the CAT was conducted across India on computers — as conflicting optical reading marker. The Indian Institutes of Management, which carry out the exam, said they would comment later. It was not clear how many students were affected Saturday.

An American firm, Prometric, which has developed the computer system for CAT, said it would be capable to evaluate what went wrong only by around 2 pm. Around 50,000 students are to appear for the examination in Delhi over a 10-day period. The test is programmed in 32 cities at 105 centers, all linked to a main server.

IIMs and Prometric had issued a disclaimer to all the students appearing for the examination to abstain from discussing the latest format and questions till Dec 7 when the exam timetable ends. Last year, almost 276,000 students across India took the examination. Some experts said before that the fall in registrations this year was due to CAT going hi-tech.

CAT scores decide admission to the IIMs in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Indore, Lucknow, Kozhikode and Shillong in addition to the Management Development Institute in Gurgaon, Institute of Management Training in Ghaziabad, Mudra Institute of Communications in Ahmedabad and Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research in Mumbai.

He said that board exams would be held as usual this academic year March 2010, but a grading system would be introduced along with the prevalent marks system. From 2011, the grading system will continue but the Board exams will become optional.

The nine-point scale will start from A1(with 91-100 marks, exceptional), A2(81-90, excellent), B1(71-80, very good), B2(61-70, good), C1(51-60, fair), C2(41-50, average), D(33-40, below average), E1(21-32, needs improvement) and E2(00-20, unsatisfactory).

The grading system targets to reduce pressure on students. But if the students choose to skip the class 10 exams, they have to take their Class 12 board exams from the same school.

Microsoft will focus on building ICT among students of Classes 11 and 12 as a part of its ‘Education Alliance’ initiative.

Under the agreement, Microsoft will train 6,000 teachers, as well as 100,000 pre-service teachers.

Microsoft has already established three IT academies in Pune, Aurangabad and Nagpur and has trained over 92,000 teachers who then mentored 46 lakh students.

Currently, the company is working with around 20 partners in developing applications that can be added on to its IP-based offerings.

Applications in the immediate pipeline include tele-education, gaming, social networking, gaming, widgets, advertising, messaging convergence and contextual information.

The UTStarcom IP Partner Program is open to partners in various fields of the IP value chain, including testing equipment, content, remote technical debugging and complaint redressal and more.

Four innovative applications have already been tested on UTStarcom’s technology platform and will soon be rolled out for service providers.

Some of the IPTV services being developed or evaluated under the programme include on-demand education/learning, TV travel booking, movie ticket booking, interactive maps, gaming, TV video blogging, hospitality solutions, widgets (for weather, stocks and cricket scores.) customer analytics (for TAM ratings), targeted advertisements and many more.