Recently the Yashpal Committee on 'Renovation and Rejuvenation of universities' has raised an alarm. An alarm bell equivalent to 'fire alarm' which require immediate attention. Is there anybody to listen?

As per the committee some private institutions, have taken the deemed university route to get the degree granting power, though majority of them have not been established to serve the cause of education, but commercial interests.

There were only 27 deemed universities till 1990. This was after 35 years of UGC act, which in 1956. But 63 institutions were granted deemed university status in just 15 years thereafter. Moreover, many are on the pipeline. This 'promotion' they got was not out of merit or love to serve the society but to escape the demanding conditions of statuary bodies like AICTE, Medical Council of India and other professional councils and also the State governments which demand 50 to 90 per cent of the seats in these institutions to single window admissions through common entrance examinations.

Misusing the academic freedom given to the universities by which they can start any course, any time and with any number of intake, these universities are not only playing with the quality of the professional education but also with the lives of the people of India.
As these universities are not required to surrender certain percentage [50 to 90%] of seats in professional courses to State governments, they can make money by collecting any amount they like as capitation fee or 'development fee'- a refined name for the former - for all the seats available with them.

These universities can increase the seats in any particular course as they like, depending on demand. As a result, at present many of them conduct professional PG courses with more than100 seats in each branch, which has demand.

Traditionally professional PG courses in medical fields like MD, MS, M Pharm, MSc Nursing etc were offered with only 10 to 15 seats per branch, as they required experienced professors to teach during first year and guide research projects in the final year. What was more important was a professor or an associate professor [with more than 10 years of teaching experience and PhD to guide 3 or 4 postgraduate students in an academic year. This norm was followed by all universities and colleges in the last 50 years and more. This was also the case with research scholars [PhD] a recognized guide could guide only 5 or 6 students. Until these students finished their PhD, they were not permitted to guide more students.

At this rate, these deemed universities with 100 to 120 students admitted in a PG branch require a minimum of 25 professors in each branch. Can any one of these universities claim to have this many professors in one branch? What is more astonishing is these universities have 2 or 3 branches like this with a total intake of 300 to 400 students in one PG course alone. Have you ever heard of such a fantastic story in your lifetime?

For example, it is said, in central Tamil Nadu alone there are 3 or 4 universities, each having more than 300 seats in M.Pharm course. 120 to 150 students each are admitted in M.Pharm pharmaceutics, pharmaceutical chemistry and pharmacology branches and that is not the end of the story.

Think of the examinations for these students. 120 to 150 PG 'theses' has to be evaluated in one session. At most one examiner can read, comprehend and note the deficiencies in the thesis and listen to the project seminar by 3 or 4 students per day. That means an external examiner has to sit and conduct the evaluation for a minimum of 25 days to one month. Is it possible? No institution or college is ready to grant on duty permission for more than 4 days at a time to their teachers for external exam duties. Obviously it is humanly impossible for any teacher to conduct evaluation for 25 to 30 days at a stretch. Then how examinations are conducted in these 'great' deemed universities, is anybody's guess. We can also list many misadventures by these universities. By misusing the academic freedom, they have without any reason or logic, i) They introduce courses as they like, with bad, old and inadequate syllabuses. ii) Start PG courses without corresponding UG courses (for example M. Pharm without B. Pharm). iii) Fix eligibility for admissions at their will and wish in order to fill the seats at any cost (Eg. B.Sc Microbiology into M.Sc Pharmaceutical Chemistry). iv) Start without required facilities, (Eg. one or two lab for 120 students, when 6 laboratories are needed for each subject). v) Award marks even up to 95% and above to the students in their final examinations without any sense or responsibility etc, If it is the case with courses having councils to monitor like AICTE, MCI, PCI, DCI and INC, think of the courses without any monitoring councils.

Thus it is crystal clear that these universities having 'jumbo' admissions in PG courses are money minded to the core and out to destroy the higher education standards and the society. It needs no further enquiry or investigation by governments, or higher judiciary, they can straight away cancel or stay the deemed university status immediately. Will our UCG or central government do this? They pretend to act as though they are unaware of all these things.

We are not able to believe that there is not even single professor in the UCG body to come out openly against this state of affairs. Has our educated community gone to that low level?

At last Pharmacy Council of India has awakened and it is said that they are going to disqualify the postgraduates from these universities, for appointment to the post of lecturers in pharmacy colleges. But already damage has been done as these universities are doing this not from this academic year, but for the last few years. Better late than never! Put a full stop to this nonsense immediately. Already many foreign universities and governments are not recognizing Indian university degrees, so authorities concerned must act fast as in a fire situation, to control further damage to our reputation, honour above all safety of our society.

Till then we can call these universities 'Deemed to be…..
By the by what about the students who joined in PG courses of these deemed universities? They are not adolescents just out from school. They are all professional graduates, matured enough to understand the state of affairs in their universities. Why they are not raising their voice against this? Well, that is again a million dollar question!

(The author is ex-president, I.P.G.A, Madurai)