Following up on the 3 November Supreme Court (SC) order directing ‘deemed-to-be universities’ to stop using the university title, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has given the institutes time till 4 pm today (30 November) to take necessary action, as reported by Economic Times.

The UGC is the statutory body tasked with coordination, determination and maintenance of standards of higher education in India. The status of a deemed university allows full autonomy in courses, syllabus, admissions and fees. Deemed-to-be universities also enjoyed the same status and privileges as deemed universities till now.

However, not having ‘university’ in the name directly affects the brand image of institutions as it causes confusion among students seeking admission in the institutes owing to the ambiguity. “Not using the word ‘university’ will affect admissions of foreign students,” said Vidya Yeravdekar, principal director of Symbiosis Society as quoted by Times Of India.

The move affects 123 such institutions which were asked to look for alternative names following the SC’s order, including some renowned institutes like the Christ University and the Jain University of Bengaluru, Pune’s Symbiosis International University and Manipal Academy of Higher Education.

The SC had recently suspended distance learning engineering degrees from four universities since 2001, and had restrained deemed-to-be universities from offering such courses from the 2018-2019 session.