Draft report of

3.4.6 Autonomous Colleges

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  India consists of a large network of more than 17,000 colleges. Out of them, there are 204 autonomous colleges spread over in 44 universities of 10 States and 1 Union Territory. These colleges form the bedrock of higher education. They are also the unit of higher education to promote access, equity, quality, relevance and research. The recommended measures are:-
  

- Teachers of autonomous colleges should be treated on par with those in the Universities.

- Special recognition should be accorded to meritorious autonomous colleges.
- Autonomous college be granted degree awarding status.
- Cluster colleges should be created. Clear and well-defined guidelines should be formulated for these to function.
- The academic council of autonomous colleges must be empowered to start the undergraduate or postgraduate courses just like the ‘deemed to be universities’.
- Networking of autonomous colleges be done in such way that the students benefit by credit transfer from one autonomous college to another autonomous college, for the purpose of conferment of the degree , so as to enable students’ mobility.
- University Grants Commission should support creation of specialized schools in the campus.
- A permanent status of autonomy and degree awarding status is conferred to colleges, which have gone through the experience 15-20 years of autonomy.
- Special grant for CPE and Autonomous colleges to initiate the Deemed University status with the aid of and in consultation with the State Governments.
- Additional grant as second phase of CPE for existing CPE colleges, after assessing their utilization of the first CPE grant.