Mjority of colleges never subjected to quality assessment: UGC

New Delhi, Nov 1 (UNI) Expressing concern over majority of colleges, including those receving government grant, functioning without ever being subjected to quality assessment, the University Grants Commission(UGC) today said they should be assessed by a competent body as soon as possible.

UGC chairman Prof Sukhdev Thorat said out of 17000 colleges, only 14000 had been recognised by it. Only 6000 out of those receving its grant, indicating they were at least maintaining some minimum standard of quality.

However, nothing was known about the quality of education of private unaided and self-financed colleges.

A a mjority of colleges under UGC had also not been subjected to quality assessment, he said ading that the National Accreditation Committee had assessed only 3000 colleges so far.

'' We have to bring the rest of the colleges under quality assessment as soon as possible,'' he said.

He was delivering a key note address at a two-day conference on 'Globalisation and Higher Education in India' organsied by ASSOCHAM here.

Prof Thorat said the UGC had developed its own measure of excellence and found that only 100 colleges and nine universities, including the JNU, had potential for excellence.

He said for achieving excellenec in higher education, quality of school and college education should be improved, as students cannot be expected to excel at higher level if their foundation was weak.

Underscoring that investment in the field was an investment for growth, Prof Thorat advised private players in education to earmark a quota for those wanting higher students but are not able to receive due to lack of means.

''You cannot achieve excellence by confining education to a small section of the society. The more inclusive you make the education, the greater choice you have when you look for excellence,'' the UGC chairman said.

He said enrollment in higher education was only 13 per cent of the total enrollment for education, as per the National Sample Survey figure. But even under this, there were great disparities as the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, women and certain religious groups were far behind others and those in higher income groups.

''Today, our dream is to create a knowledge society, but that can be done only by increasing access of education for all,'' he said, adding private participation in education should come on a non-profit basis.

On foreign players playing a rote in higher education, he said it should be on the principle of mutual participation.

UNI NAZ AK RK1830