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New Delhi, April 28 : The Centre has allowed deemed-to-be universities to drop the prefix distinguishing them from varsities, granting the institutions the right to market themselves in a manner that could confuse prospective students and their parents.

Unnoticed in the heat and dust of the elections, the government has passed an executive order allowing deemed universities to call themselves universities. The move followed sustained pressure from some institutions keen to market themselves as varsities, government officials told The Telegraph.

The daughter of a veteran politician is on the board of one of the institutes that stands to benefit from the subtle change, sources said.

Deemed universities will continue to offer degrees not recognised as university degrees, though they can drop the deemed-to-be tag from advertisements, admission prospectus or any other public hoarding or document.

At present, all deemed universities are required to specify this status alongside their name on all public documents, advertisements and on prospectuses.

The only way a student can now identify a deemed university from a full-fledged university is by looking for a sterile statement all deemed universities are required to carry in advertisements or their prospectuses.

The new University Grants Commission executive order requires deemed universities to carry under their name, and the word university, a statement that they are “recognised under Section 3 of the UGC Act”.

Institutions are granted deemed-to-be status under Section 3 of the UGC Act. But that detail is not known even to every official of the human resource development ministry, let alone a student setting out for higher studies.

The country now has as many as 124 deemed universities. These include top public-funded research institutions like the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, both in Mumbai.

Several popular private higher educational institutions such as Bharatiya Vidyapeeth and Symbiosis in Pune, Birla Institute of Technology, Pilani, and Vellore Institute of Technology, Tamil Nadu, are also deemed universities. 

Deemed university is essentially an Indian idea conceived to groom institutions so that at some point of progression they can be transformed into universities through legislation.

But in recent years, the proliferation of deemed universities has raised questions over the standard of education offered by some institutions seen as “fly-by-night” operators.

The HRD ministry itself is constantly battling to ensure that deemed universities fulfil the claims they make to students and their parents.

“Now the concern will only rise. An ordinary student cannot be expected to look out for a tiny statement below the name of an institution... he wouldn’t know its significance in any case,” a senior government official said, adding that he was “perplexed” by the decision.

In India, universities can only be set up by an act of Parliament or a state legislature. This is required to ensure that universities, the hubs of the country’s higher learning, are accountable to the people.

Deemed universities, however, require no legislation to be set up — any institution can apply to the UGC for the status, and if deemed fit, can receive the tag. This mechanism of granting deemed university status to institutions has come in for severe criticism from review panels, such as the Professor Yash Pal committee on higher education, set up the government.

The UGC and its officials have repeatedly faced allegations — from parents, students and institutions themselves — that the deemed university status is “sold” for a price.

But the differences between a university and a deemed-to-be university run much deeper. 

There are no regulations at the moment binding the fee that a private deemed university can charge. Universities, even private ones, are governed by rules overseen by the Centre or the state concerned.