Let's take a look at the UGC's timeline:
- In 1944, with the Sargent Report, the government made the first endeavour to have an education system. It was the report of the Central Advisory Board of Education on Post-War Educational Development in India.
- The University Grants Committee was constituted in 1945 through various top suggestions that enforced the responsibility to monitor the three renowned Central Universities of Aligarh, Banaras and Delhi.
- The committee got the responsibility to supervise all the universities of that era in 1947.
- The University Education Commission was formed in 1948, whose chairman was Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. The commission recommended reforming the current University Grants Committee into University Grants Commission India like the UK.
- Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (former Minister of Education) launched the University Grants Commission on December 28, 1953
- In November 1956, UGC (University Grants Commission) was officially established as a statutory body of the Government of India via 'University Grants Commission Act, 1956' of the Parliament. The purpose was to monitor the coordination, determination and maintenance of standards of university education in our country.
- To regulate the region-wise education system in India, UGC set up six centres at Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bhopal, Guwahati and Bangalore in 1994 and 1995.
Functions of the UGC
- It fosters and coordinates university education across the country
- It makes and strengthens rules on minimum standards of education.
- It maintains standards for examinations such as ICAR NET, UGC NET & CSIR UGC NET
- It evaluates growth in the areas of college and university education.
- It enables grants to universities and colleges.
- It remains in the connection between the Union and State Governments and institutions of higher education.
- It recommends necessary methods to Central and State governments to make positive changes in university Education.
