Following is from a PIB.
The Committee constituted by this Ministry under the Chairmanship of Dr. G. Sanjeeva Reddy has since submitted its report in December, 2006. The report recommended establishment of a Workers Technical University for inter-alia training the students from workers family and those belonging to economically poor sections of the society particularly form rural areas to make them more relevant to the needs of today’s technology intensive and knowledge driven industrial society.
The Committee recommended the industry to contribute a small percentage of their gross profit ( ranging from 0.5% to 2%) as the education cess for the proposed university.
The Committee recommended that the jurisdiction of the proposed National Workers Technical University shall be the whole of the country, having the main campus at Hyderabad with regional centres at different major cities in the country. The Ministry has constituted a Core Committee to work out the details of establishment of the National Workers Technical University. The XIth plan has not been finalized.
This was stated by the Minister of State for Human Resource Development Smt. D. Purandeswari in a reply to a question by Shri Ravi Prakash Verma in Lok Sabha today.
My comments: Orissa should persue campus of such a university in Berhampur or Keonjhar.
August 21st, 2007
Following are excerpts from a Business Standard report.
The eight new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and seven new Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has announced, are likely to come up in the states of Orissa, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland.
An official source said the government was working on ways to give these institutes an even, regional spread.
The states will be selected on the basis of their economic and social status. A count is being done on the number of engineering and management colleges that these states have currently and their student population.
For instance, Jammu and Kashmir has a high chance of getting either an IIT or an IIM as it has only five engineering colleges and four management colleges affiliated to the University of Jammu and University Kashmir.
Among the states in the West, Rajasthan could also be considered as Gujarat and Maharashtra already have an IIM and an IIT, respectively. In the East, with Shillong having an IIM now and Guwahati having an IIT, Mizoram and Nagaland could stand a chance, said a source close to the development.
Among the southern states, Andhra Pradesh could get an IIM or an IIT as Bangalore and Kozhikode have an IIM each and Chennai boasts of an IIT.
The idea of choosing these states to establish these centres of excellence is to maintain a regional balance in the country. This will be done keeping in mind the government?s inclusive growth agenda, the source added.
This is a very speculative news and the writer is unaware that IITs for Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan have already been announced, and IIMs for Bihar and Andhra Pradesh have also been announced earlier.
In regards to Orissa, if it comes down to be a choice between an IIT and an IIM, it is definitely preferable to get an IIT, as Orissa already has a top notch business school in XIM, an IIT can have its own business school, and the investment in an IIT is more than 10 times than that of an IIM.
Business Standard also has another article. Following are some excerpts from it.
Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has announced the setting up of eight new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), seven Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and 30 central universities in his Independence day speech, the government is shortlisting states where the institutes will be located.
Economic Times also has a report which talks about the difficulty and impact of having so many new IITs and IIMs.
August 21st, 2007
Education worldwide on-line has a ranking of schools. None of the schools in their list are from Orissa. In recent years some name brand schools have come to Orissa. This includes Loyola school and DPS Kalinga; both in Bhubaneswar. Performance wise DAV Chandrasekharpur in Bhubaneswar has been doing very well in the CBSE class X and XII exams, but not great in IIT entrance exams.
(Thanks to Piyush Patnaik for the pointer to the ranking.)
August 21st, 2007