From the 2022-23 academic session, students who could not get into their targeted college due to the extremely high cutoffs can now opt for admission to @900 autonomous colleges across the country.
These will offer courses remotely from July onwards as the government opens up the online education sector in a major reform to achieve 50% gross enrolment ratio by 2035 in alignment with the New Education Policy 2020.
Currently only universities are permitted to offer online degrees. The new move will allow autonomous colleges in the top 100 list twice in the preceding three rankings of National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) to offer online degrees without prior approval from the UGC; eligibility for admission will be simply 'senior secondary pass' .
The future online education ecosystem will be built on the principles of access, equity, quality, affordability and accountability so that no student is left out of the education net for want of choices.
The government should now ensure that these colleges do not jack up their fees to unaffordable levels.
