It seems progress is being made in this regard. A prominent leader in one of the top IT company of India is in charge of identifying a Dean for the IT/Computer Science program. I am told that T. N. Sheshan again visited Orissa last week regarding starting the university in August 2007. They are planning to have programs in medicine, sciences, and IT/Computer science, among other topics. The grapevine strongly suggests that the land overlooking Kathjodi near the origin of Kathajodi will be given to this university rather than NISER and NISER is being shown alternative land between Khurda and Jatni.
March 13th, 2007
Today’s New Indian Express reports that director serach for IIIT Bhubaneswar is going on in full swing. The search committee consists of Dr. Sadagopan from IIIT Bangalore, Mr. Subroto Bagchi of Mindtree, Dr. Ramani from HP labs and Mr. Vishal Dev, Director OCAC. The report also says that the project cost will be Rs 45 crores out of which state government has budgeted 10 crores and the remaining is to be raised from private companies.
March 1st, 2007
The following is from the 2007-08 budget speech:
Means-Cum-Merit Scholarships
20. While the SSA has improved the enrolment ratio in schools to 96 per cent, the drop out ratio continues to be high. The critical year appears to be transition from class VIII to class IX. In order to arrest the drop out ratio and encourage students to continue their education beyond class VIII, I propose to introduce a National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme. Selection will be made through a national test from among students who have passed class VIII. Each student will be given Rs.6,000 per year for study in classes IX, X, XI and XII. I propose that 100,000 scholarships may be awarded every year. In order to fund this programme, I intend to create a corpus fund of Rs.750 crore this year, and add a like amount to the fund every year over the next three years. Accordingly, a sum of Rs.750 crore will be placed with the State Bank of India, and the yield from the fund will be used for awarding the scholarships.
I like the above provision, especially the number of scholarships and the “means” aspect of it. What exactly the “means” cut-off would be remains to be seen. If this scholarship allows poor motivated students to chose the school of their choice then it will be similar to the voucher system used in Michigan. One worry is that the poor students will use the scholarship money for their family expenses and not for their educational expenses. I would also suggest that the number of scholarships be increased by at least 10% every year and the corresponding amout added to the corpus every year. Besides, private donations to the corpus should be encouraged and as the corpus grows the number of scholarships should grow.
February 28th, 2007
Ravenshaw University now has UGC approval. It was only in November 2006 that it got approval from the Orissa assembly. Today’s Pioneer reports that it received UGC approval on Febriary 6th. It is now listed in the UGC website of universities in Orissa. Now it awaits the more important status of “Funded by UGC”.
UCE Burla, about which we discussed earlier in December, must be put on a similar path. It must ape BESU (Bengal Engineering and Science University) and CUSAT (Cochin University of Science and Technology) both of which are state universities and have the “Funded by UGC” status. See the UGC West Bengal and Kerala pages here and here respectively. In their attempt to improve UCE Burla, efforts are being made for it to get deemed university status. I think they should just go for a state university status and then go all out to get the “Funded by UGC” status. They should send a delegation to BESU and CUSAT to learn some of the secrets of their success.
February 26th, 2007
Picturesque Naraj-Cuttack area where Kathajodi originates from Mahanadi is on the way to become an educational hub. On the Cuttack Island in Abhinav Bidanasi there is a plan for the second campus of Ravenshaw University. On the Naraj side land has been shortlisted for NISER (National Institute of Science Education and Research) as well as the University by Shri Shri Ravishankar.
February 24th, 2007
Business standard has an article on Manipal’s plan for Orissa. Thanks to Jitu Mishra for the tip.
February 23rd, 2007
Financial express reports that Vedanta University is after some nobel laurates. It also mentions the proposed scale of the Vedanta University: 100,000 students; 10,000 faculty; 40,000 other employess; 10,000 acres; 15000 crore investment etc.
February 19th, 2007
New indian Express reports that National Institute of Design at Ahmedabad will help Orissa in the creation of a SIDC (State Initiative Design Center).
February 18th, 2007
I am told that Vedanta University is after some top-notch people. Until their names are formally announced we can not name them here. All we can say at this point is that the people whose names are doing the round have top-notch credentials and one of them is known Inida wide.
February 18th, 2007
New Indian Express and Samaja (page1, page2) have reported that classes of IIIT Bhubaneswar will start from August 2007. The classes will initially start in the top floor of the CITE (Center for IT Excellence) building in the Rasulgarh area. Once the IIIT campus is built in Gothapatna the classes will move there.
February 18th, 2007
Tathya.in has an article titled “Kalahandi Crying for Center of Higher Learning” which reports on Dr. Digambara Patra’s concerns. Following are some paragraphs from Dr. Patra’s recent mail to a newsgroup.
… Instead of looking at 30 districts, first the state government should focus on 13 undivided districts as there are still imbalances (I had made a table earlier on this
Continue Reading February 8th, 2007
Purna Mishra has created a 19 page document on the dismal status of technical education in Orissa. Commenting on that Dr. Sri Gopal Mohanty discusses below the dismal state of state funded education in Orissa. This is what he has to say:
Continue Reading February 8th, 2007
Update: Sambada’s second report on Sheshan’s visit.
Sambada reports that T. N. Sheshan will be meeting the CM in regards to the proposed Ravishankar University. The meeting could be about the land issue. The proposed Ravishankar University is supposed to cater 15,000 students and be of international standard. The land identified for this university is in Naraj and there is a speculation that the same land is also the top choice of DAE for NISER. Lets hope that a way out is found so that both DAE/NISER and Shri Shri Ravishankar are happy.
January 25th, 2007
For close to 60 years to help schedule castes and schedule tribes who are severely underrepresented among Indians with higher education degrees, India has had reservations for them in various institutions across the country, usually in places far away from where the target population lives. So far, like Mullah Nasruddin, outside of northeast, India has not strategically established central institutions in places where the target population actually lives.
Continue Reading January 20th, 2007
… Keeping all these things in mind, if our state government could make a KBK University (from the Biju KBK grant or a separate grant of 100 crores for 3 yrs), it would be easier to convert it to a central university later on, which happened earlier to Institute of Life Sciences, Institute of Physics, Allahabad University and some other North Eastern State Universities. …
Continue Reading December 11th, 2006
All great cities have a university with the same name. In India there is Delhi University, Bombay University, Kolkata Univesrity, Chennai University, Bangalore University, Pune University, Allahabad University, Lucknow University, University of Hyderabad, etc. Now that Bhubaneswar is growing up as a city it needs a university with the same name as the city. (Note that even in Orissa there is Sambalpur University and Berhempur University named after the towns they are in.)
For this one need not start from scratch. BJB College is perhaps the top college in Orissa now. (Ravenshaw, which is now a university, was better in some areas.) R. D. Womens College is also among the top two womens colleges in the state. CET (College of Engineering and Technology) is now preferred over other state engineering colleges.
Continue Reading December 11th, 2006
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