7 higher education institutions asked to launch Meta University

Updated on: Friday, December 14, 2012

The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India has written to as many as seven higher education institutions to launch meta-university. These are apart from the Delhi University, Jamia Millia Islamia, which have already announced their first course under this concept and Jawaharlal Nehru University and Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

According to minister of state, HRD, Shashi Tharoor, "The Central Government has written letters to the University of Calcutta, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, the University of Hyderabad, the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad and the IIT, Hyderabad to launch this kind of model."

The minister, during a reply to the Lok Sabha on Wednesday said: "The University of Calcutta, the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad and the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta have expressed their interest in meta-universities."

Explaining the concept and purpose of the meta-university, Tharoor, said that the main purpose is to share learning resources with different universities by using the latest technologies available in order to enable the students to benefit from the learning resources available in different institutions.

"The University Grants Commission (UGC) has decided to come out with detailed guidelines on meta-universities," added Tharoor.

About the kind of courses to be launched the minister said: "Higher educational institutions being fully autonomous entities, it is now left to them to collaborate and identify the courses/ programmes to be offered in the meta-universities. One such meta-university has already been started in Delhi."

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