Institutions of Eminence (IoE) Scheme
- Posted By
10Pointer
- Categories
Economy
- Published
26th Feb, 2020
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Context
- Union Human Resource Development Minister chaired a high level meeting to review the progress of the Public and Private institutions which were considered to be given the status of Institutions of Eminence on the advice of UGC and the Empowered Expert Committee under the leadership of N. Gopalaswamy.
- The Minister also reviewed the status of infrastructure and human resource in these institutions and assured to extend maximum support to them by the Ministry for high quality teaching and research and for the advancement of knowledge.
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What is Institutions of Eminence (IoE) Scheme?
- University Grants Commission (UGC) 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. These Institutions shall be called as ‘Institutions of Eminence (IoEs)’.
- 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.
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Why was it launched?
- Institutions of Eminence scheme has been launched in order to implement the commitment of the Government to empower the Higher Educational Institutions and to help them become world class teaching and research institutions, as announced by the Hon’ble Finance Minister in his budget speech of 2016.
- Ten public and ten private institutions are to be identified to emerge as world-class Teaching and Research Institutions. This will enhance affordable access to high quality education for ordinary Indians.
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What are the objectives of the scheme?
- To provide for higher education leading to excellence and innovations in such branches of knowledge as may be deemed fit at post-graduate, graduate and research degree levels and award degrees, diplomas and other academic distinctions;
- To engage in areas of specialization to make distinctive contributions to the objectives of the university education system wherein the academic engagement is clearly distinguishable from programmes of an ordinary nature and is tuned to developing the capacity of the students and the researchers to compete in the global tertiary education marketplace through the acquisition and creation of advanced knowledge in those areas;
- To provide for high quality teaching and research and for the advancement of knowledge and its dissemination through various research programmes undertaken in-house by substantial number of full time faculty and research scholars in diverse disciplines;
- To pay special attention to teaching and research in unique and emerging areas of knowledge, including interdisciplinary areas, which are regarded as important for strategic needs of the country but are not being pursued by conventional or existing institutions so far, and award degrees, diplomas and other academic distinctions.
- To aim to be rated internationally for its teaching and research as a top hundred Institution in the world over time.
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Which institutes were eligible for applying for IOE tag?
- The educational institutes selected, need to be a good mix of Central Universities as well as Arts, Management and Technical Institutes. To get the status, they should be among:
- Top 50 in the National lnstitution Ranking Framework in their category
- Top 500 in internationally recognised rankings like the Times Higher Education World University Rankings or QQS or SJTU (Shanghai's Jiao Tong University) would also be eligible for inclusion in the programme.
- Public Institutes that are eligible to apply under Institutes of Eminence are as follows:
- Central Universities
- Government-owned and controlled Deemed to be Universities.
- lnstitutions of National lmportance such as IITs, NITs, etc.
- State Universities set up under a law made by Legislative Assembly of a State.
- Institutions shall be selected as IoEs by the Empowered Expert Committee (EEC), constituted for this purpose.
- These institutes need to submit a proposal providing their action plan along with milestones and timelines. Apart from this, the institutes also need to mention the milestones they plan to achieve over the next 5 to 15 years.
- The EEC will make its recommendation after engagement with the Institutions to study their proposals, hear presentations from them and after a thorough scrutiny, rank the Institutions for their suitability for inclusion in this scheme.
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How are they different from other Universities?
- Government Institutions to get additional funding upto 1000 Cr.
- The selected Institutions under IoE shall have complete academic and administrative autonomy.
- The Institutions of Eminence will have complete financial autonomy to spend the resources raised and allocated, subject to general conditions & restrictions of the Statutes and GFR.
- Academic collaborations with foreign higher educational institutions (in top 500) would be exempt from government approvals.
- Freedom to hire personnel from industry, etc., as faculty who are experts in their areas but may not have the requisite higher academic qualifications.
- Freedom to recruit faculty from outside India (limit of 25% of its faculty strength for public institution).
- Freedom to enter into academic collaborations with other Institutions within the country.
- Freedom to have own transparent merit based system for admission of students.
- Freedom to admit additionally foreign students on merit subject to a maximum of 30% of the strength of admitted domestic students.
- Freedom to fix and charge fees from foreign students without restriction.
- Freedom to determine the domestic student fees, subject to the condition that no student who gets selected admission is turned away for lack of finance. Every Institute to encourage scholarships and extension of loans facility.
- Freedom to offer courses within a program as well as to offer degrees in newer areas, including inter-disciplinary ones, after approval of its Governing Council and conforming to the minimum prevailing standards.
- Freedom to have the flexibility of course structure in terms of number of credit hours and years to take a degree, after approval of their Governing Council and conforming to the minimum prevailing standards.
- Flexibility in fixing of curriculum and syllabus, with no UGC mandated curriculum structure.
- Freedom to offer online courses as part of their programmes with a restriction that not more than 20% of the programme should be in online mode. Certificate courses can entirely be through online mode.
- Students enrolment capacity to be 10,000 in 15 years. (Lower figure permitted with justification)
- Faculty Student Ratio should be 1:20 at the time of Notification and should increase to 1:10 in five years.
- UGC Inspection shall not apply to Institutions of Eminence.
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How the government is planning to empower these institutions?
- Various decisions taken during the meeting to empower these institutions and to help them become world class teaching and research institutions are as follows:
- Institutions will invite Nobel laureates, academicians, professors, foreign faculty etc. to visit Indian educational institutions to enlarge and deepen the interface of India’s institutions of higher learning and globally recognised institutions of academic eminence.
- All the balance amount for the year 2019-2020 and new amount/funds to be paid to these institutions may be paid in the current financial year.
- Entire architecture for giving access to Research Journals to be reviewed and open access may be provided to the institutions under IoE.
- One Project Monitoring Unit to be established to monitor the progress of these institutions and activities undertaken by them.
- These institutions may adopt and develop model villages as part of the Unnat Bharat scheme for sustainable development in rural India.
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Will the IoE status really improve the quality of higher education in the country?
- The answer to the question depends on two factors — academic freedom and administrative independence.
- It is said that the universities with the IoE status will be given academic and administrative freedom. Academic freedom is important for academic excellence. Administrative freedom is essential for smooth functioning.
- If IoEs want to be really competitive globally, they should internationalise higher education. It implies that these institutions should give importance to “enhanced international cooperation and capacity building”.
- It is also important for the institutions to have constant exposure to international standards. Research and innovation should be the focus of such institutions and funds should be utilised for these purposes.
- They should lead the way in all aspects including teaching, research and innovation and inspire other institutions of higher education.
