The State government will introduce legislation to permit private universities in Kerala during the next Assembly session, Higher Education R. Bindu has said. She added that the government endorsed the idea of private universities and the contours of the proposed legislation were being finalised.
The Minister was speaking at a seminar on higher education in Kerala organised as part of the Keraleeyam festival here on Monday. The Commission for Reforms in Higher Education had also urged the government to formulate a Kerala State Private Universities Bill.
On major varsities
Speaking on the occasion, commission chairperson Shyam B. Menon said all universities were fundamentally public institutions, irrespective of whether they were promoted by governments or private entities. Several major public universities, he added, had their origin as institutions created through the efforts of individuals or private entities, while citing the examples of Visva-Bharati, Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Millia Islamia, and Annamalai University.
The participants also proposed clubbing smaller universities or merging these with larger ones to facilitate multidisciplinary learning and to make the most use of the available resources.
Merger of varsities
Kannur University Vice-Chancellor Gopinath Ravindran pointed out all State-run universities had few students, while around 40% of colleges had below 200 students. The lack of a critical mass (in higher education) as well as resource constraints made it necessary for mergers to make universities sustainable.
While Dr. Menon too endorsed the idea of doing away with compartmentalisation in higher education, T. Pradeep, Institute Professor, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, who was the convener of the commission, said fragmenting universities on the basis of discipline could hinder innovation.
Some of the panellists also advocated keeping governing bodies in higher education institutions free from partisanship by ensuring bodies such as the Boards of Studies are constituted solely on the basis of academic considerations.
Principal Secretary (Higher Education) Ishita Roy, Surjit Mazumdar of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Ishita Mukhopadyay of the University of Calcutta, Satyajit Mayor of the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Kerala State Higher Education Council vice chairman Rajan Gurukkal, Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit Vice Chancellor M.V. Narayanan and former director of the Department of Library and Information Science in Kannur University K. Dineshan also spoke.
