Colleges, Universities, and Higher Education Institutions Must Disclose Fee Structure and Refund policy on their websites: UGC

According to top officials, the UGC has made it mandatory for colleges, universities and higher education institutions to disclose details of fee structure and refund policy, hostel facilities, scholarships, rankings and accreditation on their websites.

Apart from this, the higher education institutions will also have to share the academic details including academic program, academic calendar, library and department/school/centre wise faculty details with photographs.

The move comes after the higher education regulator observed that the websites of many universities not only lacked in providing basic minimum information, but many of them were not functional and updated.

Details of patents, foreign and industry collaboration, internal quality assurance cell, internal complaints committee, anti-ragging cell with helpline numbers and equal opportunities cell are also part of the checklist issued by the University Grants Commission (UGC).

We have found that the websites of many universities not only lack in providing basic minimum information related to their university, but at times their websites are not functional and updated. This causes a lot of inconvenience and uncertainty to the stakeholders.

At this crucial moment when we are celebrating the third year of the National Education Policy 2020, it would be wise to expect universities to provide basic minimum information and updated content on their website. UGC Chairman Jagadesh Kumar said, we have prepared a check list of this information to be provided by universities on their websites.

Details about Alumni Association, Ombudsman; Constituent units, affiliated colleges, and offshore campuses, student grievance redressal committees, socio-economically disadvantaged groups cells and CPIOs and appellate authorities are also on the mandatory checklist.

Also Read: IP-University Will Give ‘A Chance’ to Students Who Could Not Complete Their Degree