• In 1902, Raleigh Commission was set up to go into the conditions of the universities in India, and to suggest measures for improvement in their constitution and working.

• The Commission precluded from reporting on primary or secondary education.

• Based on its recommendations, the Indian Universities Act was passed in 1904.

• As per the Act

(i) The universities were to give more attention to study and research;

(ii) The number of fellows of a university and their period in office was reduced and most fellows were to be nominated by the government;

(iii) The government was to have powers to veto universities’ senate regulations and could amend these regulations or pass regulations on its own;

(iv) The conditions were to be made stricter for the affiliation of private colleges; and

(iv) Five lakh rupees were to be sanctioned per annum for five years for improvement of higher education and universities.

• Curzon justified greater control over the universities in the name of quality and efficiency, but actually sought to restrict education and to discipline the educated towards loyalty to the government.

• The nationalists saw in it, an attempt to strengthen imperialism and to sabotage nationalist feelings.

• Gokhale called it a ‘retrograde measure’.