Category-1 Nod In: Mumbai University Can Now Start New Courses And Centres, Admit Foreign Students On Merit

In a recent development, Mumbai University has been granted the status of category I of graded autonomy as per the Grant of Graded Autonomy Regulation, 2018 of the University Grants Commission (UGC).

With this new status, the university will now be able to make decisions such as establishing sub-campuses, research parks, and incubation centers, establishing new departments or courses, including online courses, hiring foreign faculty, admit foreign students on merit and determining fee structures without the UGC's approval, which was previously required.

Mumbai University made the announcement on Wednesday, adding a new feather to its cap after receiving the highest rating of 3.65 from the National Assessments and Accreditation Council (NAAC) in the last  cycle of state public universities.

Vice Chancellor of Mumbai University Prof. Ravindra Kulkarni, said, “This category-I status has given the University academic freedom and through this a new avenue of educational opportunities will be opened. This new status will enable the university to take a major step towards internationalization of higher education in the context of the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.”

“Along with education, research and innovation, many activities such as skill-based education, new courses, online courses, creation of campuses can now be started in the university. Especially, due to this status, there will be a great contribution to the empowerment of distance and open learning institutes," he added. 

In addition to conferring academic liberty at various levels, the new status will enable the university to work with overseas universities that score among the top 500 ranks of recognised world-university rankings.

Notably, in the wake of the implementation of the National Education Policy, it has now become easier to make academic alliances with foreign higher education institutions for the internationalization of education. This will facilitate dual degree, associate degree and twinning degree, student teacher exchange process.

It will also be able to hire foreign faculty too on contract or tenure basis, upto 20% over and above of their total sanctioned faculty strength.