Page 57 - Print

Cover Story

India’s best government autonomous ASC colleges

There’s no change in the
top echelons of India’s
best autonomous ASC
colleges promoted by state
governments. Although
they are sufficiently
qualified to be awarded
autonomous status, they are
totally ignored by media

major reform proposed
in the National Education
Policy (NEP) 2020 is a
A mandate to India’s 45,000
undergraduate colleges to upgrade GSC, Bengaluru’s Chandragi (centre left): extraordinary efforts outcome
into multi-disciplinary degree-award-
ing autonomous higher education status, colleges are permitted to review them in separate league tables. This
institutions, and phasing out of the existing courses/programmes and re- year too, in the EducationWorld Top
university-college affiliation system structure, redesign and prescribe their 500 Arts, Science & Commerce Col-
by 2035. This is a tall order. To date, a own courses/programmes of study leges Rankings 2022-23, ASC colleg-
mere 871 undergrad colleges country- and syllabi; introduce new courses/ es are ranked in separate and distinct
wide have been granted autonomous programmes; evolve independent per- categories.
status i.e, academic and operational formance evaluation systems, conduct To compile the 2022-23 EW league
autonomy by the Delhi-based Uni- examinations and notify results. They tables of India’s best private and gov-
versity Grants Commission (UGC, are also allowed to issue mark sheets, ernment autonomous (as well as Top
estb.1956). The remaining 44,129 are migration and other certificates. Al- 100 non-autonomous) colleges, field
non-autonomous colleges tied to the though their degrees are awarded by representatives of the well-known Del-
apron strings of their affiliating uni- the affiliating university, the name of hi-based market research and opinion
versities. the college is permitted to be inscribed polls company Centre for Forecasting
UGC sets stringent conditions on the degree certificate. Of the 871 & Research Pvt. Ltd (C fore) inter-
precedent — uniformly applicable colleges conferred autonomous status viewed 4,067 sample respondents
to private and government colleges by UGC (as on February 22, 2022), comprising 1,789 college/university
— for awarding much-prized autono- 689 are privately promoted and 182 faculty and 2,278 final year college
mous status. Applicant colleges must established by the state governments. students. They persuaded the respon-
be of more than ten years vintage and Against this backdrop of wide and dents to rate sufficiently well-known
“accredited by either NAAC (National confusing diversity in India’s col- colleges on six parameters of tertiary
Assessment and Accreditation Coun- legiate education system, to provide education excellence, viz, competence
cil) with minimum ‘A’ Grade or by level playing fields and avoid apples of faculty, faculty welfare and devel-
NBA (National Board of Accreditation and oranges type comparisons, in opment, curriculum and pedagogy
of the All India Council for Technical 2020, your editors divided the broad (including digital readiness), indus-
Education) for at least three pro- category of Arts, Science and Com- try placement record, infrastructure,
gramme (s) or be awarded autonomy merce (ASC) colleges into three sub- and quality of leadership/governance.
by a corresponding accreditation categories: private autonomous, gov- Low-profile institutions rated by less
grade/score from a UGC empanelled ernment autonomous (as classified by than 25 respondents are not ranked.
accreditation agency”. UGC) and the Top 100 highly-reputed Unsurprisingly, there’s no change
After conferment of autonomous non-autonomous colleges, and ranked in the top echelons of Education-

58 EDUCATIONWORLD APRIL 2022