Mita Mukherjee

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has recently approved its proposed guidelines that make it mandatory for every institution of higher education to disclose all details on their websites about their status, fee structure, fee refund policy, relevant information about their academic programmes, admission system and names with qualification and pictures of officers and staff.

The UGC gave its nod for implementing the proposed guidelines at a meeting of the commission held last month. The comprehensive guidelines were framed last year.

The commission issued a letter to heads of every higher education institution across the country this week asking them to comply with the guidelines.

According to the existing practice, most institutions maintain official websites where a number of information regarding the academic and administrative functioning is provided.

An official said the UGC has found that the websites of several institutes not only provide incomplete basic minimum information but also in many cases the websites are either not functional or not updated.

  The commission, therefore, has prepared a list of information that the institutions will mandatorily have to upload on the websites. The institutions must also ensure that the websites are easily accessible to the public at large and also all stakeholders including prospective students, parents, research scholars, government departments, funding agencies, accreditation bodies and the alumni.

The decision has been taken in tune with the recommendation of the New Education Policy 2020 which emphasizes that higher education institutions “ shall be responsible and accountable to the stakeholders through transparent self-disclosure of all relevant records. The availability of information in the public domain is an important source of accountability,” the letter issued to the heads said.

As per the guidelines, the information disclosed on the website should be easily accessible to everyone without any need for registration or login. “Additionally, there should be a ‘Search’ facility available for easy navigation….The Higher Education Institutions are requested to take necessary measures to comply with the guidelines to ensure a fair and transparent system that will contribute to the growth of the Indian Higher Education system,” the letter said.

 Some of the information included in the mandatory self-disclosure list include details of fee structure of all academic programmes, fees charged from international students, fee refunding policy, admission policy, details of academic courses, the admission criteria, profiles with photographs of all faculty members and administrative officers, research facilities offered, details of ongoing research programmes, patents, publications and information about the status of various government programmes and number of collaborations with industry or any other agency. In addition, the institutions must also disclose the details about their present status, the acts and statutes that govern them, student support services provided, campus harmony and well being of students and role of alumni.

Heads of several institutions said that they already maintain websites where every detail about their institutions are uploaded and updated on a regular basis.

However, some heads said that the UGC letter lacked clarity in certain matters particularly the disclosures about financial matters.

“ Our college already maintains a website and we regularly update the  information on all academic and administrative matters. But we have some difficulties in disclosing information on certain financial matters like details about bank accounts, fixed deposits and the endowment funds. The instructions on these matters need to be clarified by the UGC, Jaydeep Sarangi, principal of New Alipore College in Kolkata told EducationWorld.   

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