Dubai: The Indian Consulate in Dubai has warned students in the UAE that it is illegal for universities from any state of India to run correspondence courses outside the state where the university is located.
Students and parents are requested to verify the approval of any study centres offering degrees of Indian state universities, the mission warned in a statement issued on Wednesday.
The consulate’s statement follows a Gulf News report that exposed six centres of Bharathiar University from Tamil Nadu conducting distance education courses in the UAE.
The report had highlighted that the higher education dreams of hundreds of students in Dubai, including office-goers, would be affected due to a ban on the university conducting distance learning courses outside the state.
The centres have claimed that they had stopped admissions for new batches, but continue to assure that the degrees of their current students would be approved by the University Grants Commission (UGC), the regulatory body for Indian universities. The consulate had clarified to Gulf News that it is up to the UGC to decide whether or not to give approval for degrees.
Tweeting the link to the Gulf News report, the mission stated that “it came to the notice of the consulate by way of a news item that an Indian state university has been offering degrees/diplomas through Open and Distance Learning [ODL] mode [correspondence courses] in the UAE through its study centres.”
In a statement posted on its website, the consulate said: “In this regard, it is clarified that as per the guidelines issued by the University Grants Commission, New Delhi, from time to time, no state or state-private university in any state of India can operate beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the state where the university is located.
“Students and parents are requested to verify the approval of any such study centres offering degrees of Indian university through ODL mode, from the website of the UGC.”
The consulate also published a related circular from the UGC, which was issued on July 19, 2016.
In the circular, the UGC observed that it had come to its notice that some institutions or universities, or institutions deemed to be universities were conducting examinations for their ODL programmes outside the state of their location or beyond their territorial jurisdiction, and warned that such courses were completely illegal.
“The policy of the UGC with regard to territorial jurisdiction and off-campuses/ study centres has been clearly articulated in its public notice dated 27.06.2013, which is also available on the UGC website at www.ugc.ac.in. All the Institutions are hereby directed to follow the UGC policy on ODL norms and territorial jurisdiction which are applicable for all academic activities including setting up of examination centres for distance education.”
The UGC also asked students and parents to ascertain the territorial jurisdiction of institutions before seeking admission in the same and refrain from enrolling at institutions that violate the norms of the commission.
