Based on recent findings by the government and their suspicions based on the same it has come to light that in fact some of the best known and most sought after institutions in the country are performing below expectations, and consistently so. This is a cause for great concern in India, where the education system and the quality of learning that is imparted has come under fire in the recent years almost constantly. To find out more about this frankly astonishing situation the government has ordered that the University Grants Commission (or the UGC) to step in and audit all of these underperforming universities in terms of their academic standards and quality of research. The HRD’s Union Ministry has been so specific as to identify a list of the so called non-performing or under-performing institutions which are funded by the central government. Eleven of the listed institutions will be faced with an audit.

Of the names on the list, there are several historically renowned and in fact highly notable university. The list includes Pondicherry University, Allahabad University, Aligarh Muslim University and The Central University of Jammu. The seven other institutions which were named in the list were the Central University of Jharkhand, Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University at Lucknow, Dr Hari Singh Gour University at Sagar, Central University of Rajasthan, Mahatma Gandhi Antarashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya, and Tripura University.

What is Being Done

The UGC has been given this list along with the task of auditing all the universities which are mentioned in it. There has been no particular or specific farm of time mentioned within which to conduct these audits, which might just mean that this could be a long ordeal. However, the audits would be critical in revealing why exactly these famous institutions have fallen from grace. Before the commencements of the audits, the UGC would first focus on setting the criteria, goals and deliverables of the audits. The general mandate that is behind the audits is to clearly assess the quality of academics, the activities pertaining to research and the output of the same.

The task and heavy responsibly of monitoring this entire auditing process have been handed over to a team consisting of three members who have been constituted specifically with this task in mind. The UGC stated that the audit would be holistic and all-encompassing and would truly go in depth to find out the root causes for non-performance of these universities. The would look into things like the results of the students, the kind of research inputs and outputs as well as its overall quality, as well as any records of placement activities wherever they may be relevant to the performance statistics and outcomes. This is, however, only the initial criteria and parameters that the team has come up with and thus, they would be looking into more and more detailed metric which they would pass on the ministry as and when they are developed.

This is definitely a task that is of the utmost urgency, for if the most renowned universities and colleges across India are having troubles maintaining performance and quality in their activities, then it is no wonder that this filters down to all the regular institutions as well.