Sitharaman unveiled a proposal to set up formal ‘umbrella structures’ to capitalise on ‘research synergies’ between research institutions, universities and colleges, while also maintaining internal autonomy of institutions.
Nine cities will have a ‘higher education cluster’ each, for better collaboration among institutions and assisting collective development without limiting their individual autonomy, Sitharaman said in her address to parliament.
Sitharaman named the southern city of Hyderabad in Telangana state as an example, with 40 major institutions. The city is already a centre for the technology industry while the University of Hyderabad was ranked first among Indian universities for research output by Nature Index for 2019-20.
Together with the University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad city has emerged in the limelight as the centre for COVID-19 testing in the country during the pandemic. The pandemic cluster in Hyderabad consists of the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, the CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, the National Institute of Animal Biotechnology and the CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology.
Hyderabad also hosts the National Geophysical Research Institute, the National Institute of Rural Development, the National Institute of Nutrition and a number of defence-related organisations, including the Defence Research and Development Organisation.
Although the other clusters have not been named, experts said in addition to Hyderabad they are likely in Delhi, Bangalore and Pune.
Better coordination
Sitharaman said higher education clusters would ensure better coordination, resource sharing, and collaboration for teaching and learning, as well as research and development. It will allow good private and public universities in a particular city to collaborate and encourage partnerships across institutions.
Virendra Kumar Tewari, director of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur in West Bengal state, said in a statement: “We welcome this structural change in the higher education sector. Eastern India [where IIT Kharagpur is situated] has a large number of centrally funded universities and institutes engaged in high-quality teaching and research and with excellent ranks in [India’s] National Institutional Ranking Framework.
“Such a cluster in the region would augment the coordination between these bodies in our region. More developmental initiatives will be underway as the National Education Policy 2020 is implemented and the Higher Education Commission rolls out its strategic functions and policies after it is formed.”
Under the budget, the government is proposing ‘Glue Grants’ – a reference to large scale collaborative project awards in the United States to enable consortia of multidisciplinary research teams to solve major medical and biomedical problems – to create the umbrella structures for the clusters, the office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the government of India said in its commentary on the budget.
University leaders said they were waiting for more details so that the intention and purpose of establishing university clusters could become clearer.
But moves are already underway to set up science and technology (S&T) clusters in some states, spearheaded by the PSA.
“The PSA office is leading this initiative and has planned to support six clusters – Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar, Delhi, Jodhpur, Hyderabad and Pune – with a seed grant,” Ashok Ganguli, deputy director for strategy and planning at IIT Delhi, told University World News.
“Four mega-city S&T clusters are being planned in Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad and Pune, based on the large number of institutions and knowledge resources and industries available in these regions,” Ganguli said, adding that the ultimate aim is to bring knowledge partners “out of silos” and transfer intellectual resources and laboratory research to solve societal problems through industry collaborations and start-ups.
Ganguli said the concept of S&T city clusters is to “leverage the strength” of each academic institution in a region to connect among themselves, to promote academia-industry efforts to develop products, processes and platforms, to target burgeoning issues of the city and the region, and to engage with local authorities, state and central government agencies to solve specific issues on the ground.
Chetan Singai, who was a full-time member of the National Education Policy drafting committee, now deputy director of the Ramaiah Public Policy Center, a think tank in Bengaluru (Bangalore), told University World News that higher education clusters would not be the same as S&T clusters as the latter focus on innovation and links with industry and government agencies, rather than higher education.
“But it should be possible for S&T clusters and higher education clusters to come together.
“Wherever there is an ‘Institute of National Importance’ – such as IITs and Indian Institutes of Management – and ‘Institutes of Eminence’, there is a high chance of clusters around it,” Singai said. “These [institutes] are emerging as the preferred mentors.”
Higher education clusters would be distributed geographically, Singai said, but acknowledged there would be some “horsetrading” between state governments and the central government over the allocation of the nine clusters.
Benefits for students
Higher education clusters are also expected to benefit students. The new National Education Policy, the country’s blueprint for education reforms over the next 10 years, has suggested flexibility in education delivery in physical, online and hybrid modes. It has also suggested the implementation of a credit transfer system and establishment of an ‘academic credit bank’ to put this flexibility into practice.
Higher education clusters aim to help build the flexible learning ecosystem for students. Academics said the clusters would allow students more liberty in planning their curriculum and pursuing subjects and combinations of their preferences.
The Indian government approved the National Education Policy in July 2020.
No comments:
Post a Comment