Centre keen to grant greater autonomy to Universities

Updated on: Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The Centre is keen to open educational sector and grant greater autonomy to universities, Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal said here today.

The task before the government is to ensure accommodation of growing number of students seeking higher education in the country and to raise the excellence level of the institutions imparting knowledge, he told reporters on the sidelines of a
function here.

By 2020, the estimated number of students seeking higher education would reach 42 million and would require universities and colleges to cater to their needs. "We need to allow educational institutions to mushroom. We are telling universities to increase their post-graduation and Ph D admissions", he added.

The minister said the universities should be given greater autonomy for decision making without any interference from state governments. On the entry of foreign universities into India, he said many of them had already acquired land for the purpose.

Earlier, addressing the convocation of Symbiosis International University near here, Sibal said though universally accessible and affordable public higher education
was an economic and social necessity, " the government is presently unable to make massive investment needed to realise this vision".

The stark reality that we are confronted with is that higher education can no longer be conceived purely as a public good, but rather it has assumed the nature of a private benefit converting the students to consumers," he said.

He said the government had acknowledged this reality and was doing its utmost "to ensure that consumers rights are protected and that they have easy and reasonable access to funds to finance their education".

Centre keen to grant greater autonomy to Universities

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