In 1979, the UGC had put out the UGC (Returns of Information by Universities) Rules (1979), requiring every university to furnish a set of information to the UGC every year. The 1979 rules were probably drafted with the intention of collecting all of the above data for statistical and administrative purposes.
Today, with the advent of the Right to Information Act (2005), the UGC has interpreted the RTI Act to include all information provided to the UGC (which is a public authority) by every higher education institution in the country. The UGC web site states the following.
The Right to Information Act, 2005 (22 of 2005) has been enacted by the Parliament and has come into force from 15 June, 2005. This Act provides for right to information for citizens to secure access to information under the control of public authorities in order to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority. All Universities and Colleges established by law made by Parliament or by State Legislature or by notification by the appropriate Government or owned, controlled or substantially financed directly or indirectly by funds provided by the Government shall come within the meaning of a Public Authority under this Act.Whereas, some provisions of this act have come into effect immediately on its enactment (that is on 15 June 2005), other provisions shall come into effect on 100 / 120 days of its enactment. All universities and colleges are therefore advised to carefully go through this Act and take necessary steps for implementation of various provisions including proactive disclosure of certain kind of information. Such information shall be made available to the public at large through the website by the concerned university/college.
The UGC has gone one step further. It set up a Committee in August 2005 to devise Disclosure Norms for higher education institutions in the context of the implementation of The Right to Information Act, 2005. I was one of the persons invited by the UGC to be on the Committee and was involved in the framing of the model publication scheme for disclosure norms for higher education institutions.
The task of the Committee was to adapt the Returns of Information by Universities Rules (1979) to encourage disclosure of various kinds of information by higher education institutions which would enable students to make choices about which institutions to join, based on the information made available in the public domain. The committee met once on August 18, 2005 (which I had attended) and a second time on September 15, 2005 (which I couldn't attend) and has come up with a revised draft of the Returns of Information by Higher Education Institution rules, which the UGC has now published on its web site for consultation.
The Revised Draft Rules require that
Every higher education institution shall, on or before the date specified by the UGC in this behalf, publish information, as per the Model Publication Scheme given in Schedule I appended to these rules, on their respective websites and inform UGC of the URL of the page on their web site where such information has been published, as also provide a pdf version of the same to the UGC by email or on a CD-ROM or through a web-based interface.
The information described in the Model Publication Scheme in Schedule I of the draft rules includes the following:
- Profile
- Governance
- Academic matters
- Faculty and staff
- Student enrollment
- Infrastructure and facilities
- Finances (audited annual accounts)
- Operating budget including Income (Fee and other income) and Expenditure (by head)
- Investments
- Fee structure
- Research activities
- Student amenities and support
- Name of the Principal Information Officer, and
- Course details (for each course).
The level of detail is described in the Draft rules on the UGC web site.
In addition, the Revised Draft Rules also make another important addition to the rules by stating that all institutions shall
- necessarily disclose (in all its advertisements and promotional materials in print form or electronic form) the name, address, URL and type of body that runs the institution along with the contact details of the head of the institution and the Public Information Officer. The institution shall also explictly state the accreditation, recognition and approval status of the institution and/or courses advertised.
- ensure that it does not furnish information (in its advertisements, promotional / information materials either in print or electronic form), that may amount to a deceptive practice as specified in Schedule II of the Returns of Information Rules.
If you have any comments, suggestions or ideas on the above, please send them to Dr. A.K. Parate (akparate@ugc.ac.in) in the New Initiatives Cell at the UGC.
While this is a good start, there is a lot more to do to ensure that students not only have access to information but are also able to use that information to make informed decisions.
The way it works in the financial sector could serve as the model for the education sector too. All publicly listed companies and those accepting deposits from the public are required by law to disclose various kinds of information to potential investors, but rarely do individual retail investors actually go through the annual reports or the prospectus or offer documents put out by these companies. Most often, the retail investors rely on intermediaries like CRISIL, ICRA or CARE (the independent rating agencies) to publish ratings based on the information disclosed by the companies and further research, and the investment decisions by investors are made largely on the basis of such ratings.
In the case of the education sector, CRISIL, ICRA and CARE can go through all the information disclosed by the higher education institutions under the UGC Returns of Information Rules and if required ask the institutions for any further information and then arrive at appropriate ratings. All maritime education institutions in India are already getting themselves rated by CRISIL, ICRA or CARE as a result of this being made mandatory for them by the Directorate General of Shipping, which is the regulator of maritime education in India.
