From ancient Bharat to modern India, higher education has always occupied a place of prominence in Indian history. In ancient times, Nalanda, Taxila and Vikramsila universities were renowned seats of higher learning, attracting students not only from all over the country but from far off countries like Korea, China, Burma (now Myanmar), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Tibet and Nepal. Today, India manages one of the largest higher education systems in the world*.
The
present system of higher education dates back to Mountstuart
Elphinstone's minutes of 1823, which stressed on the need for
establishing schools for teaching English and the European sciences.
Later, Lord Macaulay, in his minutes of 1835, advocated "efforts to make
natives of the country thoroughly good English scholars". Sir Charles
Wood's Dispatch of 1854, famously known as the ' Magna Carta of English
Education in India', recommended creating a properly articulated scheme
of education from the primary school to the university. It sought to
encourage indigenous education and planned the formulation of a coherent
policy of education. Subsequently, the universities of Calcutta, Bombay
(now Mumbai) and Madras were set up in 1857, followed by the university
of Allahabad in 1887.
The Inter-University Board
(later known as the Association of Indian Universities) was established
in 1925 to promote university activities, by sharing information and
cooperation in the field of education, culture, sports and allied areas.
The first attempt to formulate a national system
of education in India came In 1944, with the Report of the Central
Advisory Board of Education on Post War Educational Development in
India, also known as the Sargeant Report. It recommended the formation
of a University Grants Committee, which was formed in 1945 to oversee
the work of the three Central Universities of Aligarh, Banarasand Delhi.
In 1947, the Committee was entrusted with the responsibility of dealing
with all the then existing Universities.
Soon
after Independence, the University Education Commission was set up in
1948 under the Chairmanship of Dr. S Radhakrishnan "to report on Indian
university education and suggest improvements and extensions that might
be desirable to suit the present and future needs and aspirations of the
country". It recommended that the University Grants Committee be
reconstituted on the general model of the University Grants Commission
of the United Kingdom with a full-time Chairman and other members to be
appointed from amongst educationists of repute.
In
1952, the Union Government decided that all cases pertaining to the
allocation of grants-in-aid from public funds to the Central
Universities and other Universities and Institutions of higher learning
might be referred to the University Grants Commission. Consequently, the
University Grants Commission (UGC) was formally inaugurated by late
Shri Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the then Minister of Education, Natural
Resources and Scientific Research on 28 December 1953.
The
UGC, however, was formally established only in November 1956 as a
statutory body of the Government of India through an Act of Parliament
for the coordination, determination and maintenance of standards of
university education in India. In order to ensure effective region-wise
coverage throughout the country, the UGC has decentralised its
operations by setting up six regional centres at Pune, Hyderabad,
Kolkata, Bhopal, Guwahati and Bangalore. The head office of the UGC is
located at Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg in New Delhi, with two additional
bureaus operating from 35, Feroze Shah Road and the South Campus of
University of Delhi as well.
