Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai   

Govt. colleges to be made centres of excellence

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI Feb. 7. Some of the government-run colleges will be fostered to grow into "centres of excellence", the Higher Education Secretary, V.K. Subburaj, said here today.

To continue with its pioneering role in higher education, the Tamil Nadu Government wanted to declare at least one government-run college in each district an autonomous institution. It would be encouraged to grow into a centre of excellence, he told a national conference on autonomy organised by the Loyola College, Chennai.

Since 1980, Tamil Nadu had seen a near 15-fold increase in the number of higher education institutions — from 15 or 20 colleges to 250 engineering colleges and over 477 arts and science colleges, especially after a policy decision was taken not to open any new college but encourage self-financing institutions.

This led to disturbing fallout. There were 17,000 seats vacant in engineering colleges, and arts and science colleges in rural areas could fill only 50 per cent. Mr. Subburaj attributed this situation to the high fee charged by private colleges. On the contrary, in a college started at Andipatti by the Madurai-Kamaraj University as late as October-November 2002, all 750 seats were filled. Students said they joined the institution only because the fee structure was low. Mr. Subburaj said the private colleges should consider this trend and reduce their fee to provide access to more students.

Tamil Nadu had over 40 autonomous colleges and even now about 10 applications for autonomy were pending with the Government.

On behalf of the Government, he assured the delegates that steps would be taken to fine-tune its policy on autonomy.

The Chairman, National Assessment and Accreditation Council, A. Gnanam, said the Government should consider granting autonomy to more institutions, especially to make colleges quality conscious and, at the same time, economically viable.

The principal, Loyola College, Joseph Xavier, said the autonomy concept had to go to the next stage, for flexibility in administration.

An in-built system was available for faster updation of the curriculum for offering need-based, job-oriented courses.

He said the college managements should encourage socially-relevant research, promote new initiatives and knowledge updation by teachers.

The UGC should simplify the procedure for granting autonomy and expedite the proposal to make the autonomous colleges degree-conferring institutions.

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