UGC Regulations on Promotion and Maintenance of Standards of Academic Collaboration Between India and Foreign Educational Institutions

Source: PwC News Alert | University Grants Commission (‘UGC‘) has notified regulations for promotion and maintenance of standards for academic collaborations between Foreign Educational Institutions (‘FEI’) and Indian Educational Institutions (‘IEI’).  These regulations will be called the UGC (Promotion and Maintenance of Standards of Academic Collaborations between Indian and Foreign Educational Institutes) Regulations, 2012(‘Regulations’).

UGC Regulations nov 11, 13 – view pamphlet

The following are key highlights of the regulations:-

I.        Applicability of regulations

These regulations shall apply to all FEI and IEI operating in India through collaboration and offering programmes leading to award of degree or post graduate diploma.  However, these regulations shall not apply to technical institutions.

Where an IEI or FEI has existing collaborative arrangements, they will be required to comply with these regulations within a period of six months from the date of the regulations coming into force (i.e. September 21, 2013).

II.        Key Conditions for collaboration

S.No.	Criteria	FEI	IEI
a.	Accreditation	It will be required to be accredited with the highest grade in home country	It will be required to be accredited by national accreditation agencies with a grade not less than B or its equivalent grade
b.	Operative arrangement	FEIs shall have operative arrangements in India through IEIs by way of collaboration
c.	Experience and infrastructure requirements	FEI means an institution duly established or incorporated in its home country and has been offering educational programmes at the graduate and higher levels in its home country in the areas or disciplines concerned	It is required to have at least  five years of experience in offering degrees of post graduate diploma in India and academic infrastructure to meet the requirements set out by relevant statutory body
d.	Maintenance of standards	It will ensure that the programmes of study imparted in India are in conformity with the standards laid down by the respective statutory regulatory body	–
e.	Grievances redressal	–	It will be responsible to address all the grievances of students including legal matters of collaboration

(*However, in case the IEI is maintained by central government or commission or a state Government, it shall not be required to comply with accreditation and experience conditions as mentioned in point 1 and 4 above).

III.        Common conditions

The following additional conditions are required to be adhered under collaborative arrangement between an IEI and FEI:

1. Academic requirements including details of the programme to be made public and to be displayed on the IEIs websites

2. No programme of study and/or research to be offered which is against national security and territorial integrity of India

3. Foreign exchange transactions to abide with the relevant regulations, norms, notifications and instructions issued by the Reserve Bank of India from time to time

4. Educational institution to also abide by any other conditions specified by the Government of India or Statutory Bodies from time to time

IV.        Procedure for collaboration

The collaboration between FEI and IEI is required to be a written memorandum of understanding (‘MOU‘) subject to following conditions:

• Before entering into collaboration, it is mandatory to seek prior approval of the UGC
• Approval of UGC is also required on the draft MOU
• MOU signed by both the parties is required to be forwarded to UGC
• MOU signed by both the parties is required to be uploaded on their websites

V.        Procedure for Approval

The following is the procedure for approval: