University Grants Commission (UGC)

The University Grants Commission (UGC) of India is a statutory body set up in 1956, and is charged with coordination, determination and maintenance of standards of higher education.

Genesis: (History of Higher education in India)

• The present system of higher education dates back to Mountstuart Elphinstone's minutes of 1823 - stressed on the need for establishing schools for teaching English and the European sciences. 

• Later, Lord Macaulay, in his minutes of 1835, advocated "efforts to make natives of the country thoroughly good English scholars". 

• Sir Charles Wood's Dispatch of 1854, famously known as the ' Magna Carta of English Education in India', recommended creating a properly articulated scheme of education from the primary school to the university. 

• It sought to encourage indigenous education and planned the formulation of a coherent policy of education. 

• Subsequently, the universities of Calcutta, Bombay (now Mumbai) and Madras were set up in 1857, followed by the university of Allahabad in 1887.

• The Inter-University Board (later known as the Association of Indian Universities) was established in 1925 to promote university activities, by sharing information and cooperation in the field of education, culture, sports and allied areas.

• The first attempt to formulate a national system of education in India came in 1944, with the Report of the Central Advisory Board of Education on Post War Educational Development in India, also known as the Sargeant Report. It recommended the formation of a University Grants Committee, which was formed in 1945 to oversee the work of the three Central Universities of Aligarh, Banaras and Delhi. 

• In 1947, the Committee was entrusted with the responsibility of dealing with all the then existing Universities.

• Soon after Independence, the University Education Commission was set up in 1948 under the Chairmanship of Dr. S Radhakrishnan "to report on Indian university education and suggest improvements and extensions that might be desirable to suit the present and future needs and aspirations of the country". 

• It recommended that the University Grants Committee be reconstituted on the general model of the University Grants Commission of the United Kingdom with a full-time Chairman and other members to be appointed from amongst educationists of repute.

• In 1952, the Union Government decided that all cases pertaining to the allocation of grants-in-aid from public funds to the Central Universities and other Universities and Institutions of higher learning might be referred to the University Grants Commission. 

• Consequently, the University Grants Commission (UGC) was formally inaugurated by late Shri Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the then Minister of Education, Natural Resources and Scientific Research on 28 December 1953.

• The UGC, however, was formally established only in November 1956 as a statutory body of the Government of India through an Act of Parliament for the coordination, determination and maintenance of standards of university education in India. 

• In order to ensure effective region-wise coverage throughout the country, the UGC has decentralised its operations by setting up six regional centres at Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bhopal, Guwahati and Bangalore. 

[You can watch Lecture 1 and Lecture 2 on 'Éducation in British India']

Mandate of UGC:

The UGC has the unique distinction of being the only grant-giving agency in the country which has been vested with two responsibilities: 

• providing funds and 
• coordination, determination and maintenance of standards in institutions of higher education.

The UGC's mandate includes: 

• Promoting and coordinating university education.
• Determining and maintaining standards of teaching, examination and research in universities.
• Framing regulations on minimum standards of education.
• Monitoring developments in the field of collegiate and university education; disbursing grants to the universities and colleges.
• Serving as a vital link between the Union and state governments and institutions of higher learning.
• Advising the Central and State governments on the measures necessary for improvement of university education.

[Source: UGC website]