Thinking ahead to the 12th plan that starts from 2012 – Regional Universities, National and Regional Libraries, and Rural Sc. and Tech. Institutes
September 14th, 2009
The duration of the 11th plan is from 2007-2012. We are now in 2009 and very soon 2012 will be looming. My guess is that the planning commission may already be in its preparatory stage to start planning for 2012. Considering that one of the big focus of this government is to increase the GER (gross enrollment ratio) in higher education from 12.4% to 30% by 2020, the 12th plan will also pay significant attention to higher education. The national knowlede commission has also recommended that India have up to 50 national universities and 1500 universities. With that in mind, following is part of something that I wrote to Prof. Yash Pal (and copied to to Sam Pitroda) in June as a response to Prof. Yash Pal’s draft. (Prof Yash Pal replied back saying: "I thank you for your excellent and concerned suggestions. I have shared them with some of my colleagues. I am sure they would be taken up by some of them. Our report will be submitted in a week. Then will start another phase. Many of these will keep reverberating. Thank you again.")
ii) Regional Universities with 50-50 split between state and the center:
The Central government now has central universities and is proposing 14 national universities. In these universities the students are and will be from across the country and the universities will be funded 100% by the central government, except land being given by the state.
As you have noted some of the centrally managed universities and institutes (IITs, etc.) have a good structure and are doing the best.
As a way to transfer this first-hand to the states I propose the establishment of “Regional Universities” which are funded 50-50 by the state and the center and the students are 50-50 between the state and the rest of the country. This will be similar to the structure of the erstwhile “Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs)”, which have now been transformed to NITs. The original RECs were funded 50-50 by the state and center and had 50-50 students from the state and the rest of the country. The NITs are funded 100% by the center.
Eventually the regional universities may be funded 100% by the center. This idea has many benefits:
(a) The direct collaboration between a state and the center helps in the transfer of know-how of how to develop and manage a good university.
(b) It costs less for the center to create another 30-40 good universities, as the cost is shared 50-50.
(c) It helps develop additional knowledge centers in the states. (Most RECs were established in second rung cities in their respective states. REC/NIT in Orissa is in Rourkela, in Tamil Nadu it is in Trichy, in Maharashtra it is in Nagpur, in Karnataka it is in Surathkal, in West Bengal it is in Durgapur, etc.)
I think this is something feasible and should be pushed with the planning commission. Even with the new central universities and national universities many states have large metropolitan areas that did not get one and are in need of a good (at least partially) centrally funded institution and university. That gap can be filled with the above proposed regional universities. In Orissa possible location of such a regional university could be Rourkela or Jharsuguda.
The proposed national universities also had stringent criteria attached to them, which made it difficult to distribute them. For example, the PIB announcing them said:
As regards 14 Central Universities aiming at world class standards, it has been considered necessary that these are located in or near selected large cities which would automatically have the kind of connectivity and infrastructure which such universities would need.
Like the erstwhile RECs, the proposed regional universities need not have such stringent conditions allowing them to be located in places like Durgapur, Kadapa, Rourkela, Jharsuguda, etc.
Another item that I had in my mail to Prof. Yash Pal, which should be pushed for the 12th plan is as follows:
(vi) University and local communities; National and regional libraries:
I think a good library should be an integral component of each of the universities. Currently the libraries in most universities and colleges in India are pathetic. While the libraries are improved it should also mandate that a big part of the library materials, should be available for browsing for common folks who are not necessarily enrolled in the university. In the US any one can walk into a university library, be it Berkeley (a state university) or Stanford (a private university). I am not sure if that is the case with respect to the universities and colleges in India.
While we are discussing libraries, like central universities and national universities, the Indian government should establish a national library in each state capital (100% funded by the central govt.), and a regional library (funded 50-50 by the state and the central govt.) in another city of a state. In 5-10 years there should be good libraries in each district and in 10-15 years in each block. (When I walk into the local library in the US, I envy not growing up in the US and recall having to beg my local book store in a cabin near my house in Bhubaneswar to lend me translations of the world literature book series. I could not afford to buy them. Nor did my school have them.)
A new item that I have mentioned once in a while and that can be genarlized for the 12th plan is to establish centrally funded rural technological institutes like SLIET (Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology) in Punjab and the recently proposed ABA Ghani Khan Choudhary Institute of Engineering and Technology in West Bengal, in each of the other major states of the country. In Orissa, Balangir and Kalahandi (Bhawanipatna) are good possible locations for this. (Orissa should aim for having a centrally funded institute in each of the undivided KBK+Kandhamal districts.) Although centrally funded, these institutes are different from the NITs. The PIB release in the context of ABA GKC IET says the following:
The Institution will offer courses in Engineering and Technology to cater to the various manpower requirements of the region, with special emphasis on courses relevant to the local population such as in food technology & sericulture.
Initially, the Institution would start with Certificate level courses leading to Diploma, Degree and Post-graduate levels later.
The total project outlay of the Institute will be around Rs. 97 crores.
Dear Readers: Please suggest your thoughts and ideas on the 12th plan. Even if your main interest is about your home town, think of a way to put it in national terms.
Entry Filed under: Central-n-National Universities,Eng. colleges - SLIET CIT etc,Rourkela-Rajgangpur area (2),Sambaplpur-Burla-Jharsuguda-Baragarh area (4),Twelfth Plan
4 Writeup
1. DR. renu bala swain | September 14th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Rourkela will best for deserve a general University. Jharsuguda is also a alternative. But already there is sampalpur university which is 50km from Jharsuguda.
2. pabitra kumar barad | September 15th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
thank u sir for your future vision in education sectorof orissa.Your association with people like Mr.sam pitroda and Yaspal committee definitely help orissa to get its share from centre.If u give me permission i will present my view on this page.my request to the pressure groups of orissa and the political partys of orissa try their best to establish an IIM in BBSR.on the part of site selection the central funded institutions should be established according to the merit and importance of the place.we should not politicize this issue.The development of a city not only depends on the presence of educational institutions but also on many other factors.So the people should give more emphasis on those facter like health ,agriculture,irrigation,poverty alleviation programmes of GOI.
3. Ashis Ranjan | September 16th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
HRD ministry considers PPP for setting up innovation universities.They are in talk with the British government for collaboration and cooperation in the education sector, especially in two areas of teachers training and certification.Changing the reservations from current caste based to socio-economy is Great initiative on it .If its followed by all institutes in India.it will put end to our disgusting caste system
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4. R.K. Ghosh | September 17th, 2009 at 10:43 am
RECs experiment was abandoned because states did not fulfil their commitments but exercised control in recruitments, building works as well as equipment procurements. (Even at times we have witnessed blatant attempt of state govt for exercising control over IITs through their representative in IIT Governing bodies.) As a result RECs were never allowed to reach their potentials. The state control also damaged the mindset of people who would have flourished otherwise. As a result NITs are yet recover from their inglorious past. I don’t think NITs will reach any better standard than the present even in 15 years from now. So, the suggestion for founding regional universities would amount to creating some sick substandard institutes which will be no better than state universities. For example, Orissa does not have a decent state university. Shortage of funding, apathy and meddling all in generous doses have brought down prestigious universities like Utkal and Ravenshaw. I think states in Northern and Eastern India lack vision and perhaps unconcerned about education in general. Some how northern India is able to cope up because of largess of center govt. But eastern India is suffering because they don’t have much bargaining chips.
Having good public library is a extremely important. I remember there used to be a decent public library in Cuttack which we frequented a lot. But over the years that library was allowed to become non functional due to various reasons including lack of funding. I think PPP model for libraries could be explored. Libraries can become center of scholarly discussions and perhaps turn out to be catalyst for good research.