Recognition row: UGC to consider KSOU case tomorrow

KSOU Vice-Chancellor, officials leave to New Delhi; Open University ready to offer 35 courses

Mysuru: Ending the uncertainty faced by lakhs of students of Karnataka State Open University (KSOU), the University Grants Commission (UGC) will soon grant recognition to its courses along with certain binding riders.

A meeting of KSOU authorities and the UGC officials will take place in New Delhi tomorrow and the issues highlighted by the UGC before cancelling the recognition will be discussed. KSOU Vice-Chancellor Prof. D. Shivalingaiah has already left to New Delhi and before that he had a meeting with Karnataka Higher Education Department Secretary yesterday.

KSOU sources told Star of Mysore that In-charge Registrar Khader Pasha and Personal Secretary to the Vice-Chancellor Raju and Dean Academics Prof. Jagadeesh will  fly to New Delhi today and will attend tomorrow’s meeting. Sources said that once the issues are finalised, recognition is likely to come in a day or two. The KSOU team will also meet the members of Distance Education Council.

Recognition to KSOU was cancelled in 2013 as UGC found the Mysuru-based University opening hundreds of study centres outside Karnataka, violating the UGC rules and regulations. The KSOU was also found that many MoUs were signed with private institutions and the KSOU was offering technical and science-based courses without approval.

Efforts were on since 2013 to regain the recognition and the KSOU authorities had submitted different sets of documents and compliance letters to the UGC. The University had made arrangements to follow the UGC’s (Open and Distance Learning) Regulations, 2017. But unfortunately, the UGC did not consider the KSOU’s case despite intervention by the State and Central governments.

Last year, the UGC issued applications for renewal of recognition for courses offered by various universities and the KSOU had formally submitted its application. In its application, the KSOU has proposed to the UGC that it was ready to offer 35 courses and follow the guidelines.

At the meeting in New Delhi tomorrow, the UGC authorities are likely to ask the KSOU to meet certain conditions before the recognition is granted. The conditions include adherence to the policy of territorial jurisdiction, scrapping of technical courses and refraining from signing memoranda of understanding with private intuitions.

The UGC might ask the KSOU to adopt National Academic Depository (NAD) for issuing degree certificates. NAD stores certificates from 10th standard onwards in a central database. Apart from eradicating the menace of fake and duplicate degree certificates, the NAD makes the task of accessing and verifying academic credentials of   students easy.