About UGC: The History From Beginning

History: From Beginning

Higher education in Indian history from ancient Bharat to modern India, has always occupied a place of fame.

In ancient times, Nalanda, Taxila and Vikramsila universities were famous places of higher learning, attracting students not only from all over the country but from remote countries like Korea, China, Burma (now Myanmar), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Tibet and Nepal etc.

And even today, India manages one of the biggest superior education systems in the world.

Base of present higher education system

The present system of higher education based on Mountstuart Elphinstone's minutes of 1823, which stressed on the need for establishing schools for teaching English and the European sciences.

Later, Lord Macaulay, in his minutes of 1835, advocated "efforts to make natives of the country thoroughly good English scholars".

Sir Charles Wood's Dispatch of 1854, famously known as the ' Magna Carta of English Education in India', recommended creating a properly articulated system of education from the primary school to the university. It sought to encourage indigenous education and planned the formulation of a coherent policy of education.

Subsequently, the universities of Calcutta, Bombay (now Mumbai) and Madras were set up in 1857, followed by the University of Allahabad in 1887.

Inter-University Board

To promote university activities, by sharing information and cooperation in the field of education, culture, sports and associated areas The Inter-University Board (later known as the Association of Indian Universities) was established in 1925 first time.

The first attempt to formulate a national system of education in India came in 1944, with the Report (Sargeant Report) of the Central Advisory Board of Education on Post War Educational Development in India.

It recommended the formation of a University Grants Committee, which was formed in 1945 to manage the work of the three Central Universities of Aligarh, Banaras and Delhi. In 1947, the Committee was entrusted with the responsibility of dealing with all the then existing Universities.

Set up University Education Commission which recommends UGC

Just soon after Independence, in 1948 the University Education Commission was set up under the Chairmanship of Dr. S. Radhakrishnan "to report on Indian university education and suggest improvements and extensions that might be desirable to suit the present and future needs and aspirations of the country".

It recommended that the University Grants Committee be reconstituted on the general model of the University Grants Commission of the United Kingdom with a full-time Chairman and other members to be appointed from amongst educationists of repute.

In 1952, the Union Government decided that all cases pertaining to the allocation of grants-in-aid from public funds to the Central Universities and other Universities and Institutions of higher learning might be referred to the University Grants Commission.

Consequently, the University Grants Commission (UGC) was formally inaugurated by late Shri Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the then Minister of Education, Natural Resources and Scientific Research on 28 December 1953.

Formal Establishment and centralization of UGC

Formally UGC was established only in November 1956 as a statutory body of the Government of India through an Act of Parliament for the coordination, determination and maintenance of standards of university education in India.

In order to ensure effective region-wise coverage throughout the country, the UGC has decentralized its operations by setting up six regional centers at Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bhopal, Guwahati and Bangalore.

The head office of the UGC is located at Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg in New Delhi, with two additional bureaus operating from 35, Feroze Shah Road and the South Campus of University of Delhi as well.