NITI Aayog will be ready with a roadmap in next three months for developing 20 world class institutions (WCIs) aimed at improving quality of higher education in the country.
"We will be ready with a roadmap for developing 20 WCIs in the country to enhance the quality of education in the country in next three month," NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya said after an internal discussion on finalisation of regulatory framework for setting up of 10 private and 10 public world-class institutions.
Panagariya said, "There will be more deliberations on the issue and Aayog will consult experts on the matter as it is a very complex issue. There are many regulatory bottlenecks. We need to remove those."
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech in February had announced to frame a detailed scheme to set up world class teaching and research institutions to enhance affordable access to high quality education.
He had said, "An enabling regulatory architecture will be provided to ten public and ten private institutions to emerge as world-class teaching and research institutions."
Jaitley had also announced to set up a Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) with an initial capital base of Rs 1,000 crore.
The HEFA will be a not-for-profit organisation that will leverage funds from the market and supplement them with donations and CSR funds. These funds will be used to finance improvement in infrastructure in our top institutions and will be serviced through internal accruals, he had said.
The government is working on different options to create these WCIs which including amendment in UGC Act or having separate legislation or through executive order.
These WCIs may be given a lot of autonomy to achieve excellence which includes freedom to grant its own degrees, to generate its own funds and financial autonomy like students fee and salary structure of staff.
They will also have academic autonomy. The WCI's may be allowed to design own courses and evaluation systems among other powers.
At present, University Grant Commission is responsible for maintenance of standards in institutions of higher education in the country. Besides it also provides grants to these institutions.
