NEW DELHI: In a major rollout for high and technical education, Planning Commission has proposed a seven-year special plan (2007-14) which includes setting up eight new IITs, seven new IIMs, 20 NITs, 20 IIITs and 50 centres for training and research in frontier areas.
Of the IITs, three have already been cleared and one IIM at Shillong has received the green signal. The seven-year special plan for higher and technical education would start in the 11th Plan and spill over to the next without being diluted. The plan panel has proposed a funding of Rs 1.31 lakh crore for the seven year plan.
The full Planning Commission will discuss the proposal threadbare when it meets on August 6 to deliberate exclusively on the impetus that should be delivered to education for the 11th Plan.
The special plan envisages setting up of 30 central universities. One central university will be located in each of the 16 uncovered states while 14 new ones of world class will come up in states which provide land free of cost in attractive locations.
These universities will have various schools including medical and engineering institutions. Also, 370 new degree colleges in districts with low gross enrolment ratio would be established and 6,000 colleges would be strengthened.
In the field of technical education, the seven-year plan talks of expansion and upgradation of 200 technical institutions in various states. There is also a plan to upgrade seven technical universities which include Bengal Engineering College, Howrah, Cochin University of Science & Technology, Andhra University Engineering College, Vishakapatnam, University Engineering College, Osmania University, Jadavpur University, Institute of Technology BHU and Zakir Husain College of Engineering & Technology, AMU.
Apart from eight IITs and seven IIMs, there is a plan to have five Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, two Schools of Planning and Architecture, 20 National Institutes of Technology, 20 Indian Institutes of Information Technology and 50 centres of training and research in frontier areas.
The central assistance under the special plan has a very strong reform component and looks up to states to agree for a minimum set of reforms to restructure higher education system covering admission, revision in curricula, collaboration with foreign universities and networking.
Following are some excerpts on this topic from a report in Hindustan Times. However, the numbers below look wrong. A previous article had mentioned the total cost to be 5000 crores. That number appears more reasonable.
In a bid to have similar higher standard of education in the new 14 Central Universities proposed by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the government wants to bring a uniform legislation to govern them all. The new universities would cost government Rs Rs 41,802 crore.
… Recently, Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia had told HT that the government intends to develop these institutes into “centers of excellence” at part with one of the best in the world.
The decision to have a uniform legislation is said to be a step in this direction. HRD ministry officials, who deliberated on the issue on Monday, said uniform legislation would ensure better regulation and maintaining of high standards of education. “It will also give a sort of uniformity to higher education system in India, which is lacking,” a ministry official said.
The government has also proposed that the new Central universities should be modeled on Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, the only university in the country among top 200 in the world.
The proposed law will also ensure linkages between Central universities enabling easy mobility of students from one university into another and a centralized admission system. However, the HRD ministry has some reservation on whether the centralized admission system would be possible for graduate and post-graduate studies in arts or commerce as evaluating students’ ability through a test may not be possible.
Government officials also said the proposed law will frame complete autonomy for these universities based on JNU governance model to check “political interference” in appointment of vice-chancellors and faculty. The law would provide complete autonomy to the executive and academic council on how to run the university within University Grants Commission guidelines.
The government also plans that 14 Central Universities will have an engineering school, a management school and a law school. But, the decision on the fees to be charges will rest with the university, an official said. The Planning Commission had recommended that the fee for undergraduate courses should be Rs 12,000 per annum with 40 per cent of students getting substantial scholarships. “The fee structure should cover 20 per cent of the cost for running the university,” the official said.
Devdas babu has done it! While universities like Fakir Mohan University, North Orissa University, BPUT and Utkal University of Culture are yet to get "funded by UGC" tag, Ravenshaw which was made a university on November 15 2006 has received UGC approval to get into the "funded by UGC tag." Mega kudos to Devdas Chhotray, the VC of Ravenshaw University, who made this possible within so short a time. Following is Sambada’s report on this.
The document has many details on what kind of funding UGC provides to state universities.
I came across the IIIT proposal that Orissa had prepared in 1997. Here it is (7MB). Since that proposal, its been 10 years and finally we will have the IIIT. During these 10 years many IIITs were established in other states: Gwalior (1997), Hyderabad (1998), Allahabad (1999), Bangalore (1999), Kolkata (2000), Pune, Kerala, Jabalpur and Amethi (Campus of Allahbad).
The HRD Ministry has proposed that English learning should be made mandatory for all students from class III to enhance their computer learning skills and for better chances of employment.
For the first time, HRD Ministry and Planning Commission has linked English learning with computer education. In a bid to introduce computer education in all the government schools from upper primary level, the government wants that English should be taught from class III. …
The government in the 11th Five-Year Plan wants that schools getting fund under Sarva Siksha Abhiyan should introduce English. The final decision rests with the state governments, as education is a state subject, the official said. “From our consultation with the state governments it appears that they are not adverse to the idea,” an official said.
Under the plan, the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) will prepare training modules for the teachers on English to be taught at the primary level. “We want to cover all government school students under the Information, Communication and Training (ICT) programme and that cannot happen without adequate knowledge of English,” he said.
Some states like Andhra Pradesh have already introduced English as a compulsory subject from class I.
With the Centre stressing on improving employability of students passing from public schools, the ministry expects other states to follow the suit. The government is willing to provide additional funds for ICT at primary level, if the states make English as a mandatory.
The Union Human Resource Development Ministry is ready with a draft Bill for establishing 16 Central universities across the country.
The draft of the umbrella legislation that will govern all the new proposed Central universities — for the first time — has been sent to various Ministries for their comments. All Central universities so far have been established under different Acts.
As of now, there are only 22 Central universities in the country with Delhi having as many as four while 16 States have none. The proposed universities are believed to have been modelled as unitary, non-affiliating universities on the pattern of the Jawaharlal Nehru and Hyderabad universities.
The States identified for setting up these universities in the next five years at an estimated cost of Rs 5,000 crore in addition to the annual grants are Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, Haryana, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Punjab. …
Dr. Singh’s initiative for improved university system came in June when he announced at least one Central university for each State and a degree college for every district following a meeting on higher education with Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh, and Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram
Comparing the above list with our list of 19 states which do not yet have central universities following are some observations: (i) Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Tripura are not in the above list perhaps because universities for them was earlier announced, (ii) Goa is replaced by Maharastra and (iii) Madhya Pradesh is in the list, although it is not clear if this is in addition to the tribal university that is to be head quartered in Madhya Pradesh. Five thousand crores for 16 universities means 312.5 crores for each university.
Hindu has another article in its website with much of the same content except the following additional point.
In the 350 districts, where the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) was below the national average, Dr. Singh had asked the Centre to assist the States through the University Grants Commission (UGC) in setting up degree colleges to improve the enrolment ratio.
Odisha.com reports on this. Pioneer also reports on this and also on Agami Orissa’s plan for a meeting in Koraput. Following are some excerpts.
A meeting to chalk out the future course of action on demand of a KBK Central University was held at Malkanagiri. Local MLA Nimain Sarkar was the convener at the meeting, … Over 100 persons of the district, including senior citizens, intellectuals, educationists, journalists and representatives of civil society organisations attended the meeting.
A committee, KBK Bikas Parishad, was formed after the meeting with an aim to look into the various developmental aspects of the most neglected undivided KBK districts. RK Patra was nominated as the convener of the committee while Durga Prasad Tripathy was chosen as the president.
Ratnakar Dash was nominated as the general secretary of the committee. Deputy Speaker of the Assembly Prahallad Dora and MLA Nimain Sarkar were chosen as the advisers of the committee.
The committee alleged that the Central Government cheated the people of tribal KBK districts on many occasions. While it was decided to set up a KBK Central University at Koraput, it is now mysteriously shifted to another State by the order of the Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh, the members of the committee alleged. Reiterating the demand for KBK Central University, the members warned of an intense mass movement throughout the State. However, the foundation of the movement will be laid on July 29 at Koraput meeting, which is going to be organised by Agami Orissa.
To day, a meeting was convened by Agamee Odisha in Jaydev Bhawan about “KBK University and related railways and other Development of KBK Districts. The Dias was empty of any chair except the banner for KBK University. People went from the assembly spoke and came back. A very new concept by our President.
The meeting was opened by the address of our President Shree DK Ray, Ex Chairman OERC and Income Tax Commissioner, who welcomed one and all with warm hands. Dr Kasturi Mohapatra, VP of National Child Health Care Foundation, deliberated about Mission & Vision of Agamee Odisha.
Earlier we touched upon the working group recommendation in the 11th plan. Going through the report of the higher education working group we noticed the following recommendation (in Section 3.4.3 page 20) with respect to central universities in the north eastern region.
Faculty of medical studies needs to be established in all central universities in the north eastern region.
I think the proposed central university in Koraput should be treated at par with central universities in the north eastern region.
The government has allocated Rs 1,920 crore for setting up 16 central universities in states which do not have one so far . The plan was announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently.
Once these universities are in place, the government plans to have two central universities in each state.
“The government has set aside Rs 1,920 crore for setting up 16 central universities in 16 states that lack such varsities till now,” an official in the Ministry of Human Resource Development told Business Standard.
The allocation would take care of non-recurring costs like infrastructure and recurring costs like salaries and other yearly expenditures throughout the Eleventh Plan period.
“While Rs 60 crore is the non-recurring cost to set up a varsity, an yearly amount of Rs 12 crore would be made available for five years to take care of the recurring costs of a university,” the source said.
While estimates point that setting up one full-fledged central university costs around Rs 400 crore, the ministry expects the amount of Rs 120 crore to take care of the initial expenses like the construction of buildings and staff salaries. Since the state governments are expected to provide the required land, the amount is being considered sufficient for now. …
The source said that once the 16 universities were in place, the government would go ahead to set up two central universities in every state. There are 20 central universities in the country at present.
Hindustan Times reports on further development on the HRD front with respect to the 11th plan. Following are some excerpts.
… Planning Commission recommending higher remuneration for faculty and mandatory curricula revision every three years.
The commission said the government should look at alternate ways to improve the wages of professors and to tap the large pool of teachers of Indian origin. "The faculty can get a share of the money earned from research projects for the corporate world. Even research students can earn from these," a government official said.
The commission also proposed that some faculty be recruited on salaries higher than government pay scales, on contract basis for five years with no assurance of automatic renewal. The contract system would be mostly for NRIs with special research funding support. Tenured appointments should also be available at a certain stage for professors achieving objectively set academic standards, Planning Commission vice-chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia said in a presentation to the PM. …
The government aims to bring two per cent students under the scholarship fold and double the number of junior research fellowships. This is aimed at improving research quality. It is also working on information communication technology for all 367 universities and on connecting 18,000 colleges through the National Knowledge Network, as recommended by the National Knowledge Commission, the commission said.
The commission also said it had given in-principle approval to the setting up of three new IITs, seven new IIMs, 20 National Institutes of Technology, five Indian Institutes of Science Education Research, 20 IIITs, two Schools of Planning and Architecture.
Lets elaborate a bit on the last sentence.
The three IIT locations are announced as Bihar, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh.
Among the seven new IIMs, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Shillong (Meghalaya) are three of the locations. The remaining four locations are as yet unrevealed. (This calculation probably does not take into account the recent news that IIM Lucknow is establishing a campus in NOIDA, in the New Delhi metropolitan area. Also, note that IIM Bangalore is making good progress towards establishing a campus in Singapore.)
The 20 NITs are existing ones.
The five IISERs are in Kolkata, Pune, Mohali (Punjab), Kerala and Bhopal.
The 20 IIITs will be one in each of the major states.
The two SPAs are announced to be in Bhopal and Vijaywada.
This PIB article mentioned plans for establishing new central universities. Hindustan Times has a news report elaborating on various aspects of the new central universities. Following are some excerpts:
A common entrance admission test for all Central universities, a uniform semester and credit system to allow easy mobility for students may come into force. …
“The common national entrance test for 30 Central Universities, including 14 new ones to be set up, to ensure top quality student intake, would be the same as the JNU test, which is well regarded and has been accepted,” a senior government official said.
JNU governance model of complete autonomy will also be adopted in all universities to check “political interference” in the appointment of vice-chancellors and faculty, the official added.
The semester system would also be similar to that of JNU’s, with a facility for a student to break away for a year or two and return, if he or she wishes.
All new 14 Central universities will have an engineering school, a management school and a law school, but would be allowed to charge higher fees than the conventional courses, the presentation states.
The presentation also recommends increasing the fee for undergraduate courses to Rs 12,000 per annum with 40 per cent of students getting substantial scholarships.
“The fee structure should cover 20 per cent of the cost for running the university,” the official said. The government also wants to set up a Central government loan guarantee mechanism, which will cover 75 per cent of the loan amount in case of default by students obtaining loans from the banks.
The underlined sentence above says 14 new central universities, while the PM’s address had said 30 central universities. Perhaps it may mean that there will be 14 new central universities while 16 will be upgradations. If that is the case and indeed the new central universities have an engineering school, a management school and a law school, then all these will most likely would be part of the earlier mentioned central university in Koraput. That would be really great.
