The human resource development (HRD) ministry is likely to take up the proposals of five more public institutions that were recommended by the Empowered Expert Committee (EEC) for institute of eminence (IoE) status.
The empowered expert committee (EEC) headed by former chief election commissioner N Gopalaswami that selects IoEs will consider IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur, Delhi University, Jadavpur University, West Bengal and Anna University, Chennai for the status, officials familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity.
They added that Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) did not make it to the short-list.
On Monday, the government named six IoEs, three public (IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, and IISc, Bangalore) and three private (BITS Pilani, Jio University, and Manipal Global).
The government will provide Rs 1,000 crore funds to the three public institutions in the next five years; the private institutes will not be eligible for government funding but will enjoy academic and administrative autonomy.
The committee was supposed to select 20 IoEs, 10 public and 10 private. that will enjoy complete academic and administrative autonomy.
However, only six were selected.
According to the report of the committee, a copy of which has been seen by HT, IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Kolkata, ICAR Delhi, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, ISI, Kolkata, TIFR, Mumbai, and TISS, Mumbai have been recommended for the tag of Special institutions (not IoE).
It said these institutions “hold great potential to reach national and global prominence in a singular field of study, e.g. management, agriculture, technology, medicine etc” and added that “many have already reached global prominence, albeit in their chosen field.”
The committee recommended that the government should consider establishing a separate programme to invest in them with a different set of defined goals and expectations and termed them as special institutions.
The committee also noted that all private universities envision funding their future excellence with new revenue avenues such as contributions from alumni, research grants, and fund raising because the “current operations of private universities come to rely more than is ideal upon student fees”.
Without diversifying their revenue sources, these universities could increase student fees and “struggle to invest in excellence”
[“source=hindustantimes”]
