DR. JOSHI ANNOUNCES MAJOR SCHEMES FOR UPGRADATION
OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION
The Human Resource
Development Minister Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi today announced three
major schemes that would lead to a quantum jump in the quality
of technical education in the country. While one scheme, TEQIP,
being implemented with massive World Bank assistance, seeks to
improve teaching and research infrastucture, the other two intend
to help students and institutions in getting top quality instruction
material and research database.
Briefing the press
here about the schemes, the Minister said:
"In tune with the
NDA Government’s resolve to give a big boost to technical education
in the country, the Ministry of Human Resource Development has
taken three major initiatives, with their special focus on infrastructure
building for quality improvement, cost reduction and accessibility
at the national level.
"The first of this
ambitious initiative is Technical Education Quality Improvement
Programme (TEQIP) covering the 10th plan period, with
an outlay of Rs.1550 crore for its first phase. This programme
to be completed in three cycles has a World Bank (IDA) credit
component of Rs.1250 crore. This will develop 17-20 engineering
institutions as lead institutions and 50 to 60 as network institutions.
All of them will simultaneously become Centres of Excellence.
The selection of these institutions will be on competitive basis.
This project has already received the cabinet approval at its
last meeting.
"This project will
result in raising the level of 80 well performing engineering
institutions to world standard. This improvement will be both
qualitative and quantitative. Annually this project will ensure
the training of better quality engineers and teachers. Both governmental
and private institutions will be entitled to be covered under
this project.
"For the first cycle
of the first phase of TEQIP six states, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh,
Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh have been
selected. This selection has been made on the basis of their preparedness
and commitment to this project. Other states will join the programme
in subsequent cycles.
"The second project
is National Programme for Distance and Web based education in
Technology. This programme has been conceived in pursuance of
the recommendation of the Task Force setup by Hon'ble Prime Minister
under my chairmanship to give boost to HRD in IT Sector. Under
this programme, premier institutions of science and technology
will work together to build educational tools, methods, and courses
to create new learning environments countrywide. The primary objective
is to improve learning effectiveness through Technology Enhanced
Learning (TEL) to supplement classroom teaching.
"This will ensure
high quality learning facility in all Institutions. This will
help overcome acute faculty shortages. Our focus mainly is on
disciplines in undergraduate engineering programmes offered in
over 1200 engineering institutions in the country. The Phase I,
which is of 2-year duration, is content development in the form
of video lectures, e-course, and lecture notes.
"The third programme
is National Digital Library in Science and Technology (INDEST)
Consortium. This will provide a quantum jump in the access to
e-journals and e-data bases in the participating institutions
at a fraction of cost.
"Premier institutions
in the country would have access comparable to world class institutions
like MIT / Stanford. Seven IITs and IISc Bangalore would now access
full-text e-journals in the range of 3650 in place of existing
100 to 500.
"Other institutions
would have access to several hundred e-journals to boost their
research. From almost no access at present, NITs and RECs would
have access to around 780 e-journals. Other institutions would
have access to 610 e-journals.
"This will boost
research in academic institutions, improve teaching reduce pressure
on diminishing budgets for libraries. The institutions will benefit
from special consortia-prices for their products and services
of different e-publishers. Initially this is to cover 38 centrally
funded technical institutions (IISc Bangalore, 7 IITs, 6 IIMs,
14 NITs, 3 RECs, ISM Dhanbad, SLIET Longowal, NERIST, NITIE Mumbai,
NIFFT Ranchi, IIIT Allahabad, Atal Behari Vajpayee IIITM Gwalior).
This programme is open-ended with opportunities to other institutions
to join and subscribe to resources suited to them at rates negotiated
for the Consortium.
"These three projects
with the other innovative steps taken by the HRD Ministry in the
last four years are sure to totally revolutionise the technical
education scenario in the country."
