Although the total scores of several non-autonomous Arts, Science and Commerce colleges exceed those of colleges granted autonomy, for mysterious reasons they have not been awarded autonomous status No one can blame readers for experiencing a sense of deja vu when they peruse this year’s league table of India’s Top 100 private and/or aided non-autonomous ASC colleges. Headed by St. Stephen’s College, Delhi which has been top-ranked for the past five years, the Top 10 list is almost a replica of the 2022-23 table with the Shri Ram College of Commerce, Lady Shri Ram College for Women, Hindu College, Miranda House, Hansraj College — all affiliated with Delhi University (DU) — ranked in that order under St. Stephen’s. Quite obviously, the general public and parents, academic and students communities who constitute the SEC (socio-economic category ‘A’) sample respondents base for the annual EW India Higher Education Rankings (EWIHER), are well-aware that colleges affiliated with Delhi University are relatively well-funded and offer the best Arts, Science and Commerce (ASC) education. And that too at rock-bottom prices. Tuition and residential accommodation prices of this Central government university haven’t changed for decades and it’s a fair bet that the lion’s share of the government’s budgeted outlay of Rs.44,094 crore for higher education in 2023-24 is allocated to Delhi University. This also explains the mad annual rush for admission — and high cut-offs — of colleges affiliated with DU. Despite the countrywide popularity of DU colleges and their proven excellence — their total scores comfortably exceed the scores of the 894 undergrad colleges awarded autonomous status (see p.44) — they haven’t been granted autonomy. Delhi’s powerful neta-babu (politicians-bureaucrats) brotherhood is reluctant to surrender the powers of patronage which come with their control over Delhi University. An indicator of how great and valuable this power is that in the league table of Non-autonomous Colleges, nine are based in Delhi and affiliated with DU. Thus the application of St. Stephen’s College for autonomy made four years ago is still pending. Ditto an application for establishment of a St. Xavier’s University affiliating all St. Xavier’s Colleges countrywide (which caused considerable excitement in EducationWorld and provoked a cover story in March 2009 has vanished from the radar screen of the Union ministry of education. Now with NEP 2020 having unequivocally mandated the conferment of academic and administrative autonomy upon provenly excellent undergrad colleges and their transformation into autonomous universities — albeit somewhat paradoxically subject to monitoring of several supervisory and regulatory authorities (see edit p.8) — it’s a conjecture when St. Stephen’s and several other non-autonomous colleges of Delhi University (Shri Ram College of Commerce, Miranda House among others) will enjoy real autonomy. Meanwhile Prof. John Varghese, an alum of Loyola College, Chennai and Madras Christian College and principal of St. Stephen’s, is delighted with the college being top-ranked for the fifth year in succession. “We recently completed our second cycle of the NAAC accreditation process and cleared it with top honours — A++. The faculty, students and…
