Nowhere students

More than 30,000 students are left stranded as denotified universities wait indefinitely to protect their right to an autonomous fee structure

Narendra Kaushik Delhi

Tomorrow, for Ramit Ohlan (20), is a puzzle he does not want to face or solve. A second year student of hotel management at a Delhi campus of the recently denotified Rai University, Ramit faces the prospect of returning home to Rohtak if the university fails to get affiliated to a local government university in Delhi or in restoring its private university status soon.

What Ramit fears most is that the nationalised bank that finances his studies will ask him to repay his loan because the diploma he is pursuing has no validity. Ramit has been sitting on dharna at Jantar Manter in Connaught Place along with dozens of other students of Rai University after the Supreme Court recently quashed a Chhattisgarh state legislation that allowed private universities to award diplomas and degrees to students. The court order paved the way for the denotification of 37 universities that were functional under the legislation.

"Where do we go? Vinay Rai, the owner of Rai University, has refused to get his institution affiliated to Indraprastha University in Delhi and Chhattisgarh has refused to restore status quo through an ordinance," says Ramit. The denotification of 37 private universities has left over 30,000 students stranded. In Rai University alone, the future of 12,000 students is at stake. Of these 7,500 are based in Delhi. The University runs over 250 courses in 29 campuses around the country. Besides Delhi, it has campuses in Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Kochi, Raipur, Amethi, Lucknow and Dehradun.

It has currently declared a one month holiday to escape protests from students who have threatened to go on a rampage if Rai does not get their diplomas and degrees validated. "We won't let Rai out of his house," declares an angry Katyani Pandey, a mass communication student in Rai. The students are backed by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a student organisation affiliated to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). ABVP office bearer in Delhi Nakul Bharadwaj has threatened to launch a nationwide agitation against private educational institutions if these issues are not resolved within a week.

Not only do these students face an uncertain future, financial loss and loss of valuable time, they also face the danger of being denied placements. There are some who have already been turned out by their employers after the latter discovered that their diplomas and degrees had lost validity. Soman Chaudhary, an MBA student, who was working with a telemarketing company in Delhi as an intern, claims he was asked to leave after the company read about the denotification of his university.

Unfortunately, the UGC, which controls higher education in the country, has passed on its responsibility to the Central government which in turn has pushed it on to government universities. "The central government will form a committee to deal with the issue of denotified private universities. We're no more in the loop," says a highly placed official in the Commission's office.  UGC chairperson Arun Nigwekar could not be reached for comments. Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh has instructed local government universities to affiliate students of denotified institutions. The latter, however, will grant affiliation only after the institutions formally accept its directions on fee structure, curricula, examination and strength.

Here lies the catch. The denotified universities would rather wait indefinitely to get autonomous status than surrender their right on the fee structure. "Private University status enables us to have our own fee structure, teaching methodology and evaluation system. We will prefer it to affiliation," says pro vice chancellor, Rai University, Hema Raghavan. Rai charges 1.5 lakh per year for the same courses for which the fee in Indraprastha University is Rs. 30,000 per annum. Raghavan justifies the anomaly on the ground that private universities have no outside sources for funding.

Raghavan claims Rai has applied for university status in Sikkim, Tripura, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. It has also sought a no objection certificate from the Delhi government for its campuses in the National Capital Region. ”Our attempt is to get back the same status we had before the Supreme Court quashed the Chhattisgarh state legislation. We're concerned about our students.  We'll prefer private university status. It enables us to have our own teaching methodology, evaluation system and maintain high academic standards”,says Raghavan..

Interestingly, Amity and International Chartered Financial Analysis Institute (ICFAI) have once again received university status after their denotification by the Chhattisgarh government. While Amity has been granted university status through legislation in Uttar Pradesh, the latter is learnt to have got it from Tripura and Uttaranchal.  It is however, not clear whether their campuses outside these states have been approved or whether they have only been permitted to open new campuses within these states.