Which of the following universities has adopted the meta university concept ?

Concept — A meta university is an inter-institutional model of higher education in which a student enrolled at one institution may take credit-bearing courses at other partner institutions. The credits earned across those institutions are pooled and transferred so that the combined coursework counts towards a single degree, which makes credit transfer, a shared curriculum and ICT-enabled resource sharing the three pillars of the model. It was proposed for Indian higher education by the Ministry of Human Resource Development around 2011.

Application — Applying that definition to the universities named in this question, the one that actually put the model into operation is the University of Delhi. Through its Cluster Innovation Centre it launched India’s first meta-university (meta-college) programmes, in which a student draws courses from several Delhi University colleges and partner institutions and the credits earned at each of them count towards one degree.

Cross-check — The other universities named are ordinary central universities that were not the site of this launch:

• Assam University (established 1994, Silchar) — a teaching-cum-affiliating central university for the Barak Valley region.

• University of Hyderabad (established 1974, Gachibowli) — a largely postgraduate teaching and research university in Telangana.

• Pondicherry University (established 1985, Kalapet) — a teaching-cum-affiliating central university for the union territory of Puducherry.

Result — The university that adopted the meta university concept is Delhi University. The official UGC-NET June 2014 Paper I answer key marks this same choice for this question.