UGC guidelines call on varsities to seek out private funding

The guidelines aim to enable HEIs in achieving academic and research excellence and improving teaching – learning standards; HEIs are expected to develop and exercise academic, administrative, financial and business autonomy with accountability

UGC Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar said that the IDP document provides clear guidance and direction to the HEIs to help align their efforts towards a shared vision, ensuring that everyone is working in sync towards shared goals. File | Photo Credit: PTI

The University Grants Commission (UGC), in a meeting held on Tuesday, approved the Guidelines for Institutional Development Plan (IDP) for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The guidelines are aimed at enabling HEIs in achieving academic and research excellence and improving teaching – learning standards. It is also to guide the HEIs to exercise academic, administrative, financial and business autonomy with accountability.

UGC Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar told The Hindu that the IDP document prepared by UGC provides clear guidance and direction to the HEIs to help align their efforts towards a shared vision, ensuring that everyone is working in sync towards shared goals. “It outlines the long-term vision, mission, and objectives and the strategies and actions required to achieve these goals. By adopting this IDP, HEIs can achieve effective functioning, growth, and sustainability since it provides a roadmap for success, improves resource management, and fosters a culture of accountability and continuous improvement,” Prof. Kumar said. 

Prioritise funding

In the section “How to improve Financial Infrastructure,” the guidelines suggest that the HEIs must identify and prioritise the sources of funding for the development of financial infrastructure such as government grants, alumni donations, private sector partnerships, and fundraising campaigns.

It asks public funded as well as other HEIs to strive to work on a sustainable revenue model where the revenues are derived from tuition fee from the students, government grants and subsidies, overheads earned on the sponsored research and development projects from the Government and private sector and endowments, philanthropic contributions and other income like CSR, royalties on intellectual property (IP)/ patents etc.

“In a fully developed HEI, each of these sources must contribute about a similar percentage to the total revenue, depending on the size of the HEIs. Therefore, HEIs must also focus on expanding their undergraduate programmes as additional students mean more revenue,” it suggested. 

Align exiting courses

The guidelines are also for planning and Implantation so that the HEIs prepare a detailed plan of action for how to align exiting courses with National Education Policy, National Credit Framework, National Higher Education Qualifications Framework and National Skills Qualifications Framework. It is also for faculty development, capacity development and training.

The guidelines speak also about how to prepare students on new age skills, including upskilling and rescaling of existing workforce in the economy. It will guide the HEIs on multi-disciplinary skills, micro-credentials, and new age certificate, diploma and degree programmes and on improving enrolment in all courses with integrated skilling.