Now, opening new colleges in Maharashtra wouldn't be so easy. The government is mulling new steps as mushrooming educational institutions have overwhelmed universities and resulted in fall in quality of higher education. Not just that, many colleges are without principals and lecturers as suitable candidates are not available and thousands of seats, even in professional colleges like engineering and management, have remained vacant.
The government's policy of liberally granting permission for new colleges is about to end. "We will be making it very strict this year. Now onwards, colleges without infrastructure and facilities would not be granted permission, even if recommended by politicians. They would not qualify as per the new norms proposed by the government," state minister for higher and technical education Rajesh Tope told TOI.
The minister said government had come up a new system similar to one used by bodies like AICTE and MCI for granting permission to engineering and medical colleges respectively. "Now the proposals will be thoroughly scrutinised and only eligible ones would be given letter of intent (LoI) by the respective universities. After that, a team of experts will visit the colleges to check requisite infrastructure and facilities like classrooms and playground among others. The team will also check on whether the colleges have principals and sufficient number of lecturers," he said. Only after this, the letter of approval (LoA) would be given, he added.
Tope stated that colleges would also be given permission on geographical basis. "In case, a particular town has sufficient number of colleges, government will not grant permission to new ones there. The final permission will be subjected to LoA from universities."
Nagpur University board of college and university development officiating director AM Khurad confirmed the development saying he had received these instructions and NU would strictly follow them. NU has already received 284 proposals for new colleges/courses under its perspective plan this year.
Senior academician and vice-chancellor of Nagpur-based Sanskrit university Pankaj Chande hailed the move stating it would reduce political influence and lead to improving quality. "The students would get quality education. Earlier, there were no checks leading to mushrooming of colleges," he said.
Asked whether the state really needed more colleges when existing ones were not getting students and many were on verge of closing down, Tope said state's gross enrollment ratio (GER) was still less compared to other states and therefore expansion can't be stopped. "There are many villages and towns without colleges," he pointed out.
The government's policy of liberally granting permission for new colleges is about to end. "We will be making it very strict this year. Now onwards, colleges without infrastructure and facilities would not be granted permission, even if recommended by politicians. They would not qualify as per the new norms proposed by the government," state minister for higher and technical education Rajesh Tope told TOI.
The minister said government had come up a new system similar to one used by bodies like AICTE and MCI for granting permission to engineering and medical colleges respectively. "Now the proposals will be thoroughly scrutinised and only eligible ones would be given letter of intent (LoI) by the respective universities. After that, a team of experts will visit the colleges to check requisite infrastructure and facilities like classrooms and playground among others. The team will also check on whether the colleges have principals and sufficient number of lecturers," he said. Only after this, the letter of approval (LoA) would be given, he added.
Tope stated that colleges would also be given permission on geographical basis. "In case, a particular town has sufficient number of colleges, government will not grant permission to new ones there. The final permission will be subjected to LoA from universities."
Nagpur University board of college and university development officiating director AM Khurad confirmed the development saying he had received these instructions and NU would strictly follow them. NU has already received 284 proposals for new colleges/courses under its perspective plan this year.
Senior academician and vice-chancellor of Nagpur-based Sanskrit university Pankaj Chande hailed the move stating it would reduce political influence and lead to improving quality. "The students would get quality education. Earlier, there were no checks leading to mushrooming of colleges," he said.
Asked whether the state really needed more colleges when existing ones were not getting students and many were on verge of closing down, Tope said state's gross enrollment ratio (GER) was still less compared to other states and therefore expansion can't be stopped. "There are many villages and towns without colleges," he pointed out.
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