HRD ministry to focus on three key budget announcements
·
Setting
up 20 world-class universities
·
A
higher education finance agency and
·
Digital
academic repository
It
is being monitored almost on a fortnightly basis
New
Delhi: With no
education bills in the pipeline, the human resource development (HRD) ministry
has a new task at hand—to work on three key budget announcements on a priority
basis.
Progress
on the three announcements—setting up 20 world-class universities, a higher
education finance agency and digital academic repository—is being monitored
almost on a fortnightly basis. Ministry officials said that there is a “clear
direction from the top to deliver on these announcements within a stipulated
time frame”.
The
time frame to wrap up the projects is the next six months— well ahead of the
next annual budget, two government officials said requesting anonymity.
“The
ministry is readying to spend Rs.5,000 crore on
creating 10 world-class universities at the government level,” said the first
official.
The
ministry will soon approach the expenditure finance committee “for obtaining
approval of Rs.5,000 crore and it is expected to be
ready by May-end”, the second official added.
In
his budget speech on 29 February, finance minister Arun Jaitley said that the
government will provide “enabling regulatory architecture” to 10 private and 10
public institutions “to emerge as world-class teaching and research
institutions.”
India
has been faring poorly in various global rankings of educational institutions.
Just two of its higher educational institutions are in the top 200 QS World
University Rankings in 2015-16 as against 48 in the US and 30 in the UK.
“This
is a new priority for the HRD ministry. Before the second anniversary of the
National Democratic Alliance government (on 26 May), the HRD ministry looks to
make some real progress in terms of getting final nod from the cabinet and the
expenditure finance committee of the government,” said the second official.
The
University Grants Commission (UGC) has been asked to make separate regulations
applicable to a new class of educational institutions, which would form the
distinct category—“world class institutions”, an internal note of the HRD
ministry said.
Besides,
UGC has been asked to make regulations for central government-funded and -owned
deemed universities that can be converted into world-class institutions. “The
UGC has formed a committee for the above purpose and draft regulations are
expected to be ready by the end of this month,” the ministry note underlined.
“Internal
consultations are also made with regard to enabling regulatory structure for 10
public educational institutions like central universities, IIT (Indian
Institute of technology), IIM (Indian Institute of Management), IIIT (Indian
Institute of Information Technology) and IISER (Indian Institute of Science
Education and Research) etc. to emerge as world-class teaching research
institutions,” the note underlined.
This
means that while some of the existing government institutions will be supported
to become world class, in the private space both green field and brown field
institutions will be allowed to apply and compete to get that tag.
Rupamanjari
Ghosh, vice-chancellor of Shiv Nadar University (SNU) in Uttar Pradesh, said
that her institution supports the move, and that SNU will be one of the young
institutions to “compete” for the distinction in the private space.
Ghosh,
however, said authorities need to carefully draft the regulatory requirements
to make them “learner centric faculty driven” institutions. She said five key
factors—a contemporary curricula, faculty profile, research grants, diversity
and placement of students—will be key to achieving the goal.
Similarly,
the implementation of the proposal for setting up a Higher Education Financing
Agency (HEFA), has been fast tracked. As per the ministry note, a draft
expenditure finance committee note has already been circulated among different
ministries for views before the HRD ministry moves the cabinet for a formal
approval.
HEFA
will be a quasi-sovereign body which will tap bond markets and then lend the
proceeds to educational institutions to fund future expansion and upgrade
plans. HEFA has been allocated an initial amount of Rs.1,000
crore in the budget.
Source | Mint – The Wall Street Journal | 5 May 2016
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