Give delisted deemed varsities another chance: Oscar

Updated on: Friday, February 05, 2010

Chennai: Deemed varsities identified with deficiencies should be given an opportunity to explain, said Oscar Fernandes, chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development.

After inaugurating the second edition of the 'TN Education Summit' on the theme 'Powering India to-wards a knowledge society,' organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

'I know that one of the universities was told that they did not have adequate research facilities. But, the university says they are only a year old and needed time to build research infrastructure.'

Earlier in his inaugural address, he emphasised the need to ensure that Indian universities soon made it to the top-100 universities in the world. 'When technology becomes obsolete every six months, institutions should also make sure the syllabus reflects these changes.'

G. Viswanathan, convenor, education panel, CII-TN, and Chancellor VIT University said about 90 per cent of the students pursued higher education in colleges without research facilities, rather than at universities. With State governments taking little initiative to set up universities, public-private partnerships played an important role, he said.

Pointing to the lack of competition among universities and particularly government universities, Mr. Viswanathan said only competition can bring down the cost of higher education.

While the 11th plan strategy talked about the three basic reforms of a semester system, credit system and continuous evaluation, none of them had taken off in most government universities, he added.

The summit featured three sessions on attracting professionals to the teaching profession.

Give delisted deemed varsities another chance: Oscar

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