Institutions of Eminence to Propel Competition in Education Sector
Institutions of Eminence (IoE) status has been conferred on following Six Higher Education Institutions, including 3 from Public Sector and 3 from Private Sector, by the Government as announced on Monday July 09, 2018 by the Minister of Human Resource Development, Prakash Javadekar, who said, “The selection of institutions of eminence will not only improve the quality of education but also propel competition in the entire education sector”. This will enable them to be free from regulations of the AICTE, UGC, or the Higher Education Commission of India that is set to replace the UGC:
- Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru,
- Indian Institutes of Technology at Mumbai,
- Indian Institutes of Technology at Delhi; and
- Manipal Academy of Higher Education,
- BITS, Pilani
- Jio Institute of the Reliance Foundation (proposed),
The proposed Jio Institute of the Reliance Foundation in Maharashtra, chosen in the “Greenfield Category”, is among three private institutions granted the status. The “Greenfield Category” institutions will be issued letters of intent for three years within which to commence academic operations for the notification declaring them IoE to be issued. If they fail, the committee can recommend cancellation of the IoE status. This sets them apart from other institutions
These Institutions selected as IoEs, by the Empowered Expert Committee (EEC) under former Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami, based on their 15 years strategic vision plan and 5 years implementation plan as well as any other measure of demonstrated commitment to the cause of developing an Institution of Eminence, will have freedom to choose their own path to become world class institutions and will have greater autonomy:
- To admit 30% foreign students with no restrictions on fees to be charged from them;
- To recruit foreign faculty up to 25% of faculty strength;
- To offer online courses up to 20% of its programmes;
- To enter into academic collaboration with top 500 in the world ranking Institutions without permission of UGC;
- To fix and charge fees from foreign students without restriction;
- Have flexibility of course structure in terms of number of credit hours and years to take a degree;
- Complete flexibility in fixing of curriculum and syllabus, etc.
Each Public Institution selected as IoE will be provided financial assistance up to ₹ 1000 Cr over a period of five years.
University Grants Commission (UGC) had issued / notified enabling regulatory architecture in the form of UGC (Declaration of Government Educational Institutions as Institutions of Eminence) Guidelines, 2017 and UGC (Institutions of Eminence Deemed to be Universities) Regulations, 2017 to enable 10 public and 10 private Institutions to emerge as World Class Teaching and Research Institutions.
The aim of the scheme is to bring higher educational institutions selected as IoEs in top 500 of world ranking in the next 10 years and in top 100 eventually overtime. The scheme has been launched with an objective to provide world class teaching and research facilities to Indian students within the country and enhance general level of education of the country.
- Gopalaswami heading the empowered expert committee said, “We were asked to select 10 public and 10 private institutes to bag the tag of the ‘institutions of eminence’ but we could not find 20,”