The 14 new “world class” universities scheduled to be established in India over the next few years will be radically different from the country’s existing universities, with more academic freedom and less red tape to contend with, the Indian Express reported.
The new universities are expected to admit no more than 12,000 students each through a countrywide common entrance examination, the newspaper said. Unlike the existing universities, they will also have a semester system, a curricular revision every three years, private-sector financial support, deans with at least a decade of teaching experience, and the freedom to offer faculty incentives in addition to pay.
The institutions are expected to be without any affiliation and to offer a wide variety of subjects, including natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, engineering, technology, and medicine.
The blueprint for the new universities has been created by India’s university regulator, and it is expected that many of the changes will be incorporated into the existing universities as well as by the 16 new central universities also scheduled to be established.
“The view was that there should be no hierarchy or disparity in standards amongst universities, and the reforms and changes suggested for world-class universities should be applied to all universities,” an official told the newspaper. —Shailaja Neelakantan
