NCERT gets deemed-to-be-university status; can award own degrees

The Ministry of Education has granted deemed-to-be university status to the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), enabling it to award its own degrees, officials said.

“Deemed-to-be-University” status is a high-standard recognition conferred by the Ministry of Education on high-performing higher education institutions in India under Section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956.

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"The Ministry of Education, on the advice of the University Grants Commission (UGC), NCERT, along with its six constituent units have been declared as a deemed-to-be University under distinct category," an official notification said.

These constituent units include regional institutes of education in Ajmer, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Mysuru and Shillong, along with the Pandit Sunderlal Sharma Central Institute of Vocational Education in Bhopal.

De-Novo category

The NCERT is the apex organisation aimed at improving the quality of school education. The NCERT undertakes various activities and programmes, including educational research and innovation, curriculum development and development of textual and teaching-learning materials.

Three years back, the Centre had approved granting the deemed-to-be-university status to NCERT in the ‘De Novo’ category. A De-Novo deemed university is an institution that can apply to the UGC for setting up a new institution as deemed-to-be-university, which will undertake study and research in unique and emerging areas of knowledge that are not offered by any existing institution.

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Currently, the graduate and post-graduate programmes offered by the NCERT’s Regional Institute of Education (REI) are affiliated with local universities like Barkatullah University, Bhopal, M D S University, Ajmer, University of Mysuru, Utkal University, Bhubaneshwar and the North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong.

Mandates for deemed-to-be-university

The notification has listed certain conditions for granting the status.

These conditions prevent the NCERT from indulging in any activities that are "commercial" and "profit-making" in nature, and mandate that all academic courses or programmes must conform to the norms and standards prescribed by the UGC and the statutory bodies or councils concerned.

The notification also mandated the NCERT to start new programmes, off-campus or on offshore campuses, "only in accordance with the norms and guidelines issued by the UGC, from time to time, on the subject".

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Further, the Ministry has said that the NCERT shall take appropriate steps to begin research programmes, doctoral programmes and innovative academic programmes.

The government has also mandated the NCERT to start participating in annual rankings of institutes issued by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) and has asked it to “compulsorily” create the Academic Bank of Credits (ABC), identities of its students, and upload their credit scores in digital lockers that can be reflected in the ABC portal.