Calicut University Plea UGC Approval For Distance Education Courses: Read details here

Calicut University has pleaded University Grants Commission (UGC) for the approval to offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses as a part of the distance education mode this academic year. 

Sree Narayana Guru Open University, the newly established university, is yet to get approval from UGC to do so. On the other hand, the admission procedure is most likely to start by next month.

As per the School of Distance Education sources, at Calicut University, unofficial supervision has been followed from the State government. 

Earlier, the last date to file the UGC application form was October 15, 2020. But the UGC commission decided to extend the last date by October 31, 2020. After applying for 14 UG courses and 12 PG courses, the university said that they are now expecting clearance from the UGC commission.

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Apart from this, the government had planned to stop all distance education programmes offered by the Calicut University, Mahatma Gandhi University, University of Kerala, and Kannur University. 

The government has decided to recognise all these universities under the Open University. However, a petition was filed in the Kerala High Court by parallel colleges and students to look into the matter. 

The court informed that the newly established university is still waiting for the approval from the UGC, leading to the future of more than lakh students at risk. The court has also directed the state government to get recognition under UGC regulations.

Read: Kerala Government Set Up COVID-19 Treatment Centre at Calicut University

Moreover, parallel college authorities and students had also mentioned that the government had not allowed other universities to offer distance education programmes as there was uncertainty about whether students would apply for the open university. 

It was also revealed, that the project report of the university had been ignored that clearly stated that the university functioning was subject to UGC validation.

Also Read: UGC Releases Notice Stating Precautions to be taken by Students before Enrolling for Open and Distance Learning Programmes