• The Commission was set up to study and report on the problems of the Calcutta University, but its recommendations were applicable, more or less, to other universities also.
• It reviewed the entire field, from school education to university education.
• It held the view that, for the improvement of university education, improvement of secondary education was a necessary pre-condition.
• Its observations were as follows:
(i) The school course should cover 12 years. The students should enter university after an intermediate stage (rather than matric) for a three-year degree course in university.
This was done to
(a) prepare the students for university stage;
(b) relieve the universities of a large number of below university standard students; and
(c) provide collegiate education to those not planning to go through the university stage.
• A separate board of secondary and intermediate education should be set-up for the administration and control of secondary and intermediate education.
(ii) There should be less rigidity in framing university regulations.
(iii) A university should function as a centralized, unitary residential-teaching autonomous body, rather than as scattered, affiliated colleges.
(iv) Female education, applied scientific and technological education, teachers' training, including those for professional and vocational colleges, should be extended.
• In the period from 1916 to 1921, seven new universities came up at Mysore, Patna, Banaras, Aligarh, Dacca, Lucknow and Osmania.
• In 1920, the government recommended the Saddler report to the provincial governments.