Haryana’s two universities, including Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra (KUK) and Guru Jambeshwar University (GJU) of Science and Technology, Hisar are among the 21 state universities granted autonomy by the University Grants Commission (UGC) giving these varsities different degrees of freedom in academic and administrative decision-making.

While stating this on Wednesday, Haryana Education minister Ram Bilas Sharma said that out of the total 21 state Universities which had been awarded this status in India, these two were from Haryana.

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He said that KUK ranked eighth with a NAAC score of 3.52 granted with grade-I autonomy and GJU ranked 21st with NAAC score of 3.28 with grade-II autonomy.

Out of only two private universities which have been awarded this status, one is from Haryana which was, OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat which ranked first amongst private universities with NAAC score of 3.26 and granted with grade-II autonomy, he added.

The minister said, “These universities have brought laurels to the state and we all are proud of the efforts made by the universities administration for achieving new heights in the field of higher education. The state government is committed to provide quality higher education in the state.”

There were 799 Universities in India as per the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) survey 2015-16, he added.

The Principal Secretary, Higher Education Department, Jyoti Arora said that the state government had already made accreditation from NAAC mandatory for all the institutions of higher learning and necessary directions to all the Vice Chancellors and College Principals had been issued.

She said that as a part of major reforms in higher education in the state, the government for the first time had developed a format for reviewing the progress of state universities on various performance indicators.

The format comprising measurable parameters in academic quality, teaching quality, research, employability, infrastructure, inclusiveness and social impact, collaborations and financial aids would improve quality and access in higher education would be a major indicator for grant in aid to the state universities in future.

A framework for making college education more job oriented would be implemented from the next session, added Arora.

She said that these Universities had been granted autonomy under UGC’s new regulation on ‘Categorization of Universities for Grant of Graded Autonomy’, which aimed to provide greater autonomy to institutions under three categories, based on their National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) accreditation score and giving them different degrees of freedom in academic and administrative decision-making.