New guidelines call on universities to seek private funding

The University Grants Commission (UGC) on Tuesday 25 July, approved the Guidelines for Institutional Development Plan (IDP) for Higher Education Institutions. The guidelines are aimed at enabling higher education institutions to achieve academic and research excellence and improve teaching and learning standards. It will also guide the institutions to exercise academic, administrative, financial and business autonomy with accountability.

UGC Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar told The Hindu that the IDP document prepared by UGC provides clear guidance and direction to the HEIs to help align their efforts towards a shared vision, ensuring that everyone is working in sync towards shared goals.

In the section “How to improve Financial Infrastructure”, the guidelines suggest that the institutions identify and prioritise the sources of funding for the development of financial infrastructure such as government grants, alumni donations, private sector partnerships, and fundraising campaigns. It asks public funded as well as other HEIs to strive to work on a sustainable revenue model where the revenues are derived from tuition fee from the students, government grants and subsidies, overheads earned on the sponsored research and development projects from the government and private sector and endowments, philanthropic contributions and other income.
Full report on The Hindu site