New Delhi: Over 90,000 students from Mysuru and other parts of the country who have taken up distance education courses from the Karnataka State Open University (KSOU) will finally get relief as positive signals are emerging out of a meeting held in New Delhi yesterday between the KSOU authorities and the UGC officials.

The UGC withdrew its recognition to KSOU from 2012-13 through a public notice in June 2015. Since then, KSOU has been making efforts to get back the recognition. The courses were de-recognised on June 15, 2015 for violating jurisdiction and other guidelines. The  institution, since then, has had two zero years (2015-16 and 2016-17).

Yesterday’s meeting was facilitated by Union Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) and was attended by University Grants Commission (UGC) officials. Sources said that the meeting was chaired by MHRD Secretary. MHRD Joint Secretary, UGC Secretary, Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Karnataka, Ratna Prabha, KSOU Vice-Chancellor Prof. D. Shivalingaiah and Registrar Dr. K.G. Chandrashekar were other participants.

It was the first time that the MHRD has taken the initiative to convene a meeting bringing together UGC, Karnataka Government and KSOU together to resolve the imbroglio that has threatened the future of thousands of students who have already taken up courses and who had made plans to study in the University.

Speaking to Star of Mysore this morning, KSOU Vice-Chancellor Prof. D. Shivalingaiah said that the meeting was fruitful where the UGC officials heard KSOU’s case patiently.

“We returned from New Delhi last night and as a first step, we may get permission to commence admissions for the year 2017-18. The UGC is expected to communicate this in writing in one or two weeks,”  he said.

“The UGC officials were silent on our request for restoring the recognition with retrospective effect from 2012. We hope that this request will be considered,” Prof. Shivalingaiah said.

“When we had met earlier, we have seen UGC officials objecting to our every move and had outrightly rejected many of our proposals. But yesterday, they were considerate as we had submitted all relevant documents,” he said.  

Prof. Shivalingaiah said that according to UGC officials, new rules and norms to govern Universities and distance education Universities are being formulated. “We have been told to adhere to the rules,” he added.