Saturday, June 02, 2007

A couple of interesting developments


A pan-South Asian university is to be located in Delhi. Akshaya Mukul of the ET reports that classes will start in 2009.

The HIndu quotes Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as saying that "every State will have a Central university and every district a degree college":

At present, there were 20 Central universities. While 16 States did not have a single Central university, some such as Delhi had four. In the 350 districts, where enrolment was below national average, it would be brought up to the national average. The degree colleges would have to be set up by the States, but the Centre would assist them through the UGC.

According to Dr. Singh, each central university should become a symbol of excellence, a model of efficiency and an example in terms of academic standards and university governance worthy of emulation by State universities.

All I would ask for is that these institutions be "Real Universities", that combine undergraduate and graduate teaching with research in multiple disciplines that include humanities, social and natural sciences.

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