Pranab favours smaller varsities
Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday favoured establishing more small universities in line with the National Knowledge Commission’s recommendations, which are being implemented by state governments and institutions of higher learning.
“Smaller Universities would not only be responsive to change and easier to manage, but would also become the hub of research to capture synergies between teaching and research that mutually enrich each other,” Mukherjee said in his special address at the valedictory function of VIT University’s Silver Jubilee celebrations on Sunday evening.
It would require “not only policy measures but also changes in resource allocation, reward systems and mindsets,” Mukherjee said, even as expressing his inability to be personally present here for the celebrations. The text of his speech was read out by Union Shipping Minister G K Vasan.
The two-day celebrations began with the Chinese Ambassador to India, Zhang Yan, opening an international summit on global trends in higher education and inaugurating an exhibition on the history of VIT University.
The first fruit of the “Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative”, signed between US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, came to the fore, as the US Consul Chief in Chennai, Bryan Dalton, handed over to Viswanathan, the prestigious American Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) accreditation certificate to VIT University for its technical programmes in Civil and Mechanical Engineering.
