Recently, Professor NR Madhava Menon, the founding Vice-Chancellor (VC) of my alma mater, the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS), Kolkata, and one of the founders of the countrywide law university (NLU) challenge, passed away.
Few keep in mind that Professor Menon became the writer of present-day policies governing open and distance learning (ODL) in India. Tragically, this legacy is being tarnished at NUJS, which has been a persistent violator of ODL rules of the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and University Grants Commission (UGC) since 2008.
The regulatory framework
ODL in India acquired impetus with the established order of IGNOU in 1985.
For nearly three years after that, IGNOU had the twin position of functioning as an Open University and additionally discharging the role of the countrywide regulator of ODL guides through its Distance Education Council (DEC).
Under the ‘Guidelines of DEC on Minimum Requirements for Recognition of ODL Institutions’ (DEC Guidelines), first published in 2006, universities had been required to cozy mandatory approvals to provide ODL and for each ODL guide that had been to be run. These DEC Guidelines were compulsorily relevant to all Universities, in phrases of the Supreme Court’s 2009 judgment in Annamalai.
Following the Supreme Court’s judgments in Yashpal and Annamalai, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) in August 2010 constituted the Professor NR Madhava Menon Committee to propose measures for robust law of ODL.
In December 2012, UGC became appointed the countrywide regulator of ODL (nontechnical courses). IGNOU’s DEC was dissolved, and its regulatory features were transferred to UGC’s Distance Education Bureau (DEB) to effectuate this. The DEB followed the DEC Guidelines to keep away from disruptions for the duration of the transition phase.
In 2016, the DEB counseled that each online ODL guide had been being run without its permission, and these guides cannot be run until new guidelines are formulated. Later, the UGC notified the UGC (Open and Distance Learning) Regulations, 2017, and the UGC (Online Courses or Programmes) Regulations, 2018 (Online Regulations).
Recently, DEB’s Right to Information (RTI) response dated 16. 04.2019 confirmed that no universities had been granted permission to run any online courses until the Online Regulations got into impact in July 2018.
