University Management in Uttar Pradesh A view from the Chancellor's office
As Chancellor of 28 universities in India's largest state,
Uttar Pradesh, the subject of higher education is of the
greatest importance to me. 15,60,375 university students
were awarded degrees in 2016-17. Of these the number of
girl students was 7,97,646 or, a highly impressive figure of
51%. 66% of the awards and medals were won by girl
students. As is evident from these figures, not only are we
looking at a massive number of students, we are also
fortunate to note that half of these are women. Clearly the
demand for higher education in UP is extremely high and
the number of women enrolling for University education is
very heartening.
From the very start of my stint as Chancellor, I have
endeavoured to bring about order and adherence to time
schedules in the university calendar. I have stressed upon
the need for timely conduct of examinations, declaration of
results and the holding of convocations for the award of
degree certificates. I am glad to be able to say that my
efforts have borne fruit and in the past three years, UP
state universities have been showing improvement. In this
context I welcome the task undertaken by officers of my
secretariat to carry out a comparative study of university
systems across four states with special reference to the role
of the Chancellor. I am particularly more happy because
the initiative to undertake such a study came from these
dedicated officers.
This report of the comparative study is comprehensive and
takes a hard, critical look at how universities in Uttar
Pradesh appear today. I feel that the observations and
recommendations contained in the report are pertinent and
worthy of serious consideration. I congratulate Ms Juthika
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Patankar, Principal Secretary to the Governor and
Chancellor, UP and Dr Rajvir Singh Rathore, Officer-on-
Special -Duty in charge of Education in the Governor's
Secretariat and their team who have attempted a very
sincere exercise in understanding and analysing University
systems in UP.
I trust this Report would be of use to all those interested in
this field.
(Ram Naik)
Introduction
The objective of this study of Universities, as perceived from the
office of the Chancellor in different states, was to compare the role of
the Chancellor of Universities in Uttar Pradesh (UP) with that in other
states. In UP the Governor as Chancellor of most state universities is
the designated Appellate Authority in university matters. He/she
appoints the Vice-Chancellor by setting up a Search Committee to
recommend a panel of names from which he/she makes the final
selection and appointment. Consequently he/she is also vested with the
authority to grant leave or institute disciplinary action and award
penalties. This is in addition to the traditional role of the Chancellor in
convocations; as president or chairperson of apex university councils;
or of appointing nominees on various committees. The assigned role of
the Chancellor in UP means that a fair amount of the administrative
work related to the posts of Vice-Chancellors of universities is handled
in the office of the Chancellor. This study attempted to understand from
the system in other states whether the same situation obtained in
Chancellors' offices there or whether there were alternative procedures
in place.
The Chancellor as Appellate Authority in UP state universities has
resulted in a very large number of appeals being regularly filed in the
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Chancellor's office. These appeals which are disposed by way of quasi-
judicial orders of the Chancellor, are handled in his/her office by the
Legal Advisor(s), senior judiciary officers who have been posted in the
office of the Governor for dispensing advice on all matters pertaining to
the Constitution of India and to law. In practice, the disposal of these
appeals has ended up being a very lengthy process with pendency levels
going as high as 200 cases a month.
The office of the Chancellor in UP services appeals, handles
hundreds of miscellaneous University representations, provides
Chancellor's nominees for various purposes, operates as secretariat to
Search Committees for Vice-Chancellor appointments, deals with
disciplinary cases and leave sanctions of Vice-Chancellors, co-ordinates
Convocations and convenes review meetings of Vice-Chancellors. It
has enabled the Chancellor to draw the attention of the government to
several areas of higher education policy which need urgent attention
and reform. In short, it functions as simply another, albeit an
abbreviated, Department of Higher Education without any of the
wherewithal for such functioning. The work of the Principal Secretary
to the Governor in UP is completely overshadowed in terms of
substance and volume by the work done in his/her capacity as Principal
Secretary to the Chancellor.
During the course of our interaction with offices in the states of
Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, we discovered that
the role of the Governor as Chancellor was considerably limited in
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these states as compared to UP. The situation varied from greater
intervention by state governments in university management to the
virtual elimination of the functions of the Governor as Chancellor. In all
these states, the Departments of Higher Education were prominent in
University matters. The Principal Secretary to the Governor was not, by
extension, Principal Secretary to the Chancellor. There were no Legal
Advisors to the Governors in Raj Bhavans nor, significantly, was the
Chancellor the designated Appellate Authority in any other state. As a
result there was no pendency of appeals or representations in the
Chancellor's office. On the other hand, notwithstanding the reduced role
of the Governor as Chancellor, the picture which emerged was one of
Chancellors with a comprehensive overview of higher education in their
states and apparently meaningful interface between Chancellors and
government departments of higher education in the overall interest of
University education.
In the light of the above situation we analysed the position of UP
with regard to the Chancellor and Higher Education. We have
attempted to understand and highlight the areas in which we feel that
changes are necessary and we have also drawn attention to those areas
in which the system in UP appears to be significantly preferable to that
in other states.
This study has focused on the overview of universities as seen
from the office of the Chancellor. It has not ventured into areas such as
university buildings, infrastructure, pedagogy, financial management,
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students' issues or academic reforms. By undertaking this study and
writing this report it is not our intention to criticise or denigrate any
system. It is in fact our effort to understand better our own system in
UP through comparison and contrast with other states so that we might
be able to consider alternative ways of improving the quality of our
functioning.
This study lays no claim whatsoever to serious academic research
and rigorous data assimilation and analysis. It is an exploration of
university management systems in a few states in India with reference
to the Chancellor's office. Information and data for the purposes of our
study has been gathered through interviews and interaction with
authorities in different states and with our own Vice-chancellors and the
Chancellor in UP. The analysis, discussion and conclusions are based
upon our visits, interaction and our own experience of the past four
years in working in the office of the Chancellor in Uttar Pradesh.
Factual errors or perceived misrepresentation of any issue in other
states, if any, are solely our responsibility.
We are extremely grateful to the highest offices of the Chancellors
and the Departments of Higher Education and University authorities in
Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat for facilitating our
study. We received tremendous courtesy, warm hospitality and the
greatest degree of professional knowledge and cooperation from all
these states. We were honoured to be given time for interaction by the
highest office, that of Honourable Governor, in West Bengal, Tamil
Nadu and Gujarat.
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We thank our colleague, Shri S S Upadhyay, Legal Advisor to the
Governor, UP for his observations, interpretations and counsel on
University law and legal matters. We also thank Shri Sudeep Banerji,
Officer-on- Special-Duty (Information Technology) in the Raj Bhavan
UP, for his suggestions and help. He was part of the delegation to West
Bengal. We thank Shri Kamesh Shukla, Additional Legal Advisor to
Governor, UP whom we deployed as a sounding-board for various ideas
from time to time. We thank our colleagues in the Education section of
the Chancellor's office and the staff in our own offices for all their help.
We are, above all, very grateful to the Honourable Governor and
Chancellor of Uttar Pradesh who motivated, encouraged and supported
our attempt and who taught us to be open to criticism, suggestions and
learning. We have tried to incorporate the spirit of his advice that "there
is always a better way of doing things".
