Jagadesh Kumar Mamidala, chairman of UGC, will retire after holding towards the implementation of NEP. The main reforms initiated include measures to introduce flexibility in higher education and faculty meetings, dissolution of the UGC care list and more.
Jagadesh Kumar Mamidala retired as chairman of the University Grants (UGC). The position was in February 2022. During his time, Mr. Kumar supported the principles of the NEP 2020. The UGC proposal (minimal standards of UG and PG and PG grades) of the standards that tried to support flexibility in the qualification of the faculty and more. Some of them, highly discussed.
Mr. Kumar served on Jawaharlal Nezru University (JNU) in Nový Delhi from 2016 to 2022. He completed his master’s and ph.D in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Indian Madras. Subsequently, he continued his postdo -championship research in Canada University of Waterloo.
UGC has announced a new set of regulations that has streamlined the process of recognizing and providing equivalence of academic qualifications obtained from foreign institutions. The UGC Regulation (recognition and granting equivalence of qualifications obtained from foreign educational institutions), 2025, now enables recognition of qualifications obtained from offshore campuses of foreign institutions.
Mr. Kumar promoted national educational policy (NEP) 2020 consistently through his policies and speeches. Mr. Kumar spoke at the event of the Spirit of Nep and said, “Let students think freely, without any limitation of disciplinary borders. Students should not be conformist; they should question the status quo and question everything they study”.
One of the most discussed decisions according to Mr. Kumar’s possession was the interruption of the UGC List. It was a list of high -quality academic magazines, for the first time presented in 2018. The UGC care list was replaced by a set of suggestive parameters for the selection of magazines based on eight criteria.
As chairman of UGC, Mr. Kumar brought many reforms to UG and PG Education. The proposal of UGC (minimum standards of instructions for UG and PG grades) proposed to the 2024 change in the acceptance and structure of the programs.
This brought freedom to multidisciplinary education. It also brought several items, recognition of previous learning, in addition to accelerated and extended study programs that allow you to shorten or extend UG programs. Mr. Kumar claimed that these changes were made to ensure that they were in line with the evolving academic needs of our time.
However, these reforms were criticized. Although the objectives of these reforms were clear, there were questions about the availability of resources to make these extensive changes.
Obstacles still exist with systemic problems, such as insufficient faculty strength, insufficiently funded institution and lack of reasonably trained or motivated teachers. It has been said that the regulatory framework, such as the requirements of the class, is controlled by the associated universities where most students study, were poorly equipped to support these new rules, which can be easier to be carried out in autonomous institutions.
The main bone of the dispute was that his reforms tried to provide the Governor’s wider powers to government universities by appointing a vice -chairman. Critics considered this to undermine the role and powers of state governments.
Published – April 7, 2025 9:01
