Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao said on Thursday that the Telangana state government would introduce the Private Universities Bill soon. This will clear the decks for the establishment of new private universities in the state.
So far, the state has lacked the legal mechanism to facilitate the setting up of private universities as per the UGC (Establishment and Maintenance of a Private University) Regulations 2010.
As per the UGC 2010 regulations, each state must have a defined mechanism for the evolution of private university proposals and finally pass an Act for each university.
So far Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Gujarat, Assam and Punjab have passed the Acts. Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand have the guidelines while the Andhra Pradesh Cabinet had adopted a Private Universities Bill last August.
The Chief Minister, who had made an offer to an education entrepreneur to start a private university in the state, declared at a private function on Thursday that enacting a new law would attract private players in the higher education sector and lead to creation of high standard universities.
Experts, however, did not share his enthusiasm. Prof. P. Jayaprakash Rao, former chairman of Andhra Pradesh Council for Higher Education, warned that this could be a tricky proposition.
“Our experience with private universities in other states is not so encouraging. In Hyderabad, there are quite a few engineering college managements who want to get rid of government control and this could become an opportunity to them,” he said.
The government must make sure that it will allow only service-minded individuals and organisations and have a foolproof monitoring mechanism in place, he suggested. He made similar observations about the Andhra Pradesh Bill.
“There are rumours that those who are running the education industry are behind the Andhra Pradesh Bill,” he added.
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