The UGC has adopted new regulations on teacher-student ratio in all Central universities and deemed to be universities. As per new guidelines, all these institutions will now need to have at least one teacher for every 10 students for their post-graduate programmes in science and one for every 25 students at the undergraduate level.
The UGC regulations also laid down strictures that the workload of the teacher should not be less than 40 hours a week for 30 working weeks in an academic year. The new regulations were adopted on recommendations of a committee led by Prof J.A.K. Tareen, former member of the University Grants Commission and vice chancellor Puducherry University.
For PG programmes, the new regulations make it mandatory for universities to have at least one teacher for every 10 students for science, and media and mass communication studies, and one teacher for every 15 pupils for humanities, social sciences each as well as for commerce and management.
Meanwhile, in another move towards maintaining educational standards, the UGC has also notified tough regulations for affiliation of colleges. An aspiring college will now need to have at least two acres of land and facilities in metro cities or five acres of area with adequate infrastructure and faculty in non-metros for securing affiliation from a university.
An institutions also needs to create and maintain corpus funds, varying from Rs 15 lakh to Rs 35 lakh depending on courses. The aspiring institution will apply for affiliation to a university, specifying its development plan for ten years and its faculty recruitment policy.
The UGC has asked the 41 central universities and 256 state universities to follow the new regulations with immediate effect.