The Joint Action Council of College Teachers (JAC) has strongly opposed two recent policy moves in Tamil Nadu’s higher education sector that have sparked widespread controversy among academics, educators, students, and the public.
These issues, included in the forum’s statement, were legislative amendments to the Tamil Nadu Private Universities Act that relax land and endowment fund criteria, alongside the University Grants Commission’s final approval for the University of Western Australia (UWA) to set up an international campus in Chennai.
The controversy deepened after Higher Education Minister K. Viswanathan’s introduced the relaxation Bill in the Assembly on September 8, prompting sharp pushback from teacher organisations and the public.
Under the revised norms, the minimum land requirement for setting up private universities had been slashed from 100 acres to 12 acres in Chennai metropolitan area, 18 acres in other corporation and municipal regions, and 25 acres elsewhere. Simultaneously, the mandatory permanent endowment fund was halved from ₹50 crore to ₹25 crore.
The statement said these changes lowered the State’s quality control and fast-tracked commercial expansion. The UGC also approved the UWA to set up campus in Chennai, offering programmes in Business Management, Computer Science, Data Science, AI, IT, and MBAs. The Ministry of Education and the UGC had explicitly linked this move to internationalisation objectives of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, it added.
“While the State has traditionally championed a distinct, social justice-oriented higher education model, these moves signal practical alignment with NEP 2020’s push for private and foreign capital. At a time when State universities and government-aided colleges are grappling with severe deficits, infrastructural neglect, vacant faculty positions, and research funding shortages, prioritising foreign and private expansions raises serious questions about State policy priorities,” the statement observed.
Under UGC norms, foreign universities retained substantial autonomy over their recruitment rules, salary structures, and service conditions, raising anxieties regarding job security and wage parity for educators.
Further, the steep fee structures typical of foreign and private institutions threatened to create a two-tiered education system where high-paying students accessed global campuses, while lower-income families were left reliant on underfunded public institutions.
Drawing lessons from global precedents, such as rising reliance on student tuition fees in England and OECD data tracking increased private funding globally, the statement warned that internationalisation must not dilute the State’s fundamental responsibility.
The JAC urged the State government to reconsider relaxations for private universities, clear pending faculty vacancies, and inject robust public funding into colleges.
Published – October 10, 2026 08:03 pm IST
