THE UNIVERSITY Grants Commission (UGC) is set to regulate the fee charged by private deemed universities for professional programmes.
The higher education regulator is working on a regulation that proposes to set up a high-powered committee to determine the “reasonableness” of the fee charged by private deemd-to-be universities.
As per the UGC (Fees in professional education imparted by private-aided and unaided institutions deemed to be universities) Regulations, 2019, a deemed university can only charge fee approved by the said committee. UGC made the draft regulations public on Thursday for feedback and comments.
Most states have fee fixation committeesand even laws for fee charged by state private institutions for professional programmes. However, there’s no regulation of fee charged by private deemed universities which come under the union government. Currently, out of the 127 deemed universities, 90 are private institutions.
In order to determine the “reasonableness” of the fee charged by private deemed universities, the proposed fee committee (to be set up by UGC) will look into a number of factors, including the cost of educating one student, revenue surplus generated by the institution, salary and allowances to be paid to teaching and non-teaching staff.
According to the draft, UGC’s fee committee will have five members and it will be headed by a former Vice-Chancellor or former head of a regulatory body like the UGC. The other members will include an eminent educationist who had achieved the rank of a professor, a nominee of a statuary national regulatory authority, an expert from the field of accountancy and an officer of the UGC.
The said committee will be competent to impose a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh for every violation, apart from the excess fee that the institution will be asked to refund to the students.
Courtesy: The Indian Express