Odisha HRD

NIT Rourkela must follow NIT Warangal and go for a medical school and law school

Following is an excerpt from an IANS story by Prashant Nanda that we found in a report in thaiinidan.com.

… “We will retain our original name (NIT-Warangal) but it will become an integrated university with both medical and legal education among other programmes beyond engineering and technology.

“We will also provide postgraduate courses in humanities, business economics, biotechnology and many others. The focus will gradually shift to from under-graduation to post-graduation and research,” Rao explained.

NIT Warangal is the first among the NITs. It was dedicated to the nation by the first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru way back in 1959. Then it was known a regional engineering college. The institute is older than many IITs, including IIT-Delhi.

… The director said the institute, which started its journey with a little over 100 students from a temporary campus, now boasts of 4,200 students. In 2006, the institute had 2,000 students of which 1,600 were pursuing B.Tech courses and the rest M.Tech.

“While all the central government institutes are implementing the OBC (Other Backward Classes) quota in three years, we did it at one go. With an increase in the number of seats, we have shifted our focus to post-graduation and research. Out of 4,200 students, currently 1,400 are M.Tech students and 300 are PhD scholars,” Rao added.

Like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, NIT-Warangal will become an integrated university and provide all kinds of courses to students to help the country move forward in the field of higher education, he said.

“The process of becoming a university will start from the coming academic session but it may take a few years to become a full-fledged one. We are targeting 5,000 students by 2011 and 15,000 by 2015,” Rao said, elaborating on his mega plan.

“We are planning to have the school of medical science next year. We are going to give emphasis on biotechnology and microbiology and here the school of medical science will help us grow in both research and innovation.”

NIT Roukela has recently started a program in Biotechnology and is about to start MBA. But it must go beyond and pursue a medical school. 

3 comments September 29th, 2009

Sibal’s plan for the proposed national/innovation universities seems to be like the establishment of the first 5 IITs

Some of the first five IITs in Kharagpur, Mumbai, Chennai, Kanpur and Delhi were developed through mentorship by  various foreign countries and organizations such as UNESCO. For example, IIT Bombay was helped by UNESCO and Soviet Union, IIT Madras was helped by Germany and IIT Kanpur by a consortium of 9 US universities.

The Union HRD minister Mr. Kapil Sibal seems to be looking for similar help for establishing the 14 innovation universities. Following is an excerpt from a report in Economic Times.

The ministry for human resource development is keen to tie up with the world’s leading universities to ensure that its “innovation universities” are a class apart from the pack. During his visit to the US in late October, the minister for human resource development Kapil Sibal would like to firm up MoUs with leading US universities to collaborate with the proposed innovation universities.

Among the American Universities that are being approached are Yale, Standford and MIT. The government plans to set up 14 innovation universities over the next few years.

The government proposes to set up these universities as “global centres of innovation” and would like to draw on the talent and expertise of leading universities. “We are looking for a collaboration for two or three of the innovation universities,” a senior ministry official said. India has had a history of collaborating with leading international universities to set up her own world class institutions.

… Mr Sibal, who will be travelling to the US ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s state visit in November, will leading a delegation to put in place the India-US Education Council.

2 comments September 29th, 2009