Gujarat Education - Autonomy Plan for 7 tech colleges in Gujarat

From -DNA

Autonomy Plan for 7 tech colleges in Gujarat

On Tuesday, seven technical education colleges in the state, including LD College of Engineering in the city, took a step towards becoming autonomous. The state education department issued a general resolution (GR) to implement autonomy in the seven engineering colleges.

The resolution was passed as per the project implementation plan (PIP) of the second phase of the Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP). The bridge left for these colleges to cross now is their selection by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD).

The colleges are from Morbi, Patan, Gandhinagar, Bhavnagar, and Ahmedabad. Senior officials in the state education department said that while the state government had okayed the proposal of granting autonomy to these colleges, the final decision would be taken by MHRD.

Interpreting the GR issued on Tuesday, a senior official in the education department said, "The GR content suggests that these seven colleges be given autonomy as prescribed in the PIP and implemented (autonomy) for those institutes selected by the MHRD. The selection is under process."

The state government had agreed to implement autonomy to LD Engineering College in category one as per the PIP and forwarded the proposal to MHRD. Similarly, it has also forwarded proposals of the six other government-run engineering colleges to MHRD.

Gaining autonomy would mean the colleges will have academic, managerial, financial and administrative independence.

Autonomy would allow these colleges to decide their academic and examination schedules or even design their syllabus without the state government's interference, apart from getting specific grants from state and central governments.

The official further said that there are around 60 short-listed institutes in section one and around 120 institutes in section two of the TEQIP from across the country. MHRD will soon announce the names of colleges selected for granting of autonomy.