VCs to monitor granting of autonomy

The Governor appointed five-member panel will hold a review meet once every three months

 
The Governor, who is also the chancellor of all universities in the state, has appointed a five-member committee headed by Kuvempu University Vice-Chancellor B S Sherigara, with a mandate to monitor five different issues, including autonomy to colleges, and submit reports periodically.

Autonomy has been a matter of much discussion and debate in the State. While there has been a general agreement that autonomy provides freedom to institutions leading to improvement in the quality of education, there have also been complaints of some institutions failing to utilise the flexibility provided by the system.

The timing of the constitution of the committee is also significant, as it comes when the autonomy experiment in the state will complete five years. Colleges which secured autonomy in 2005 will now have to re-apply with their respective universities. Presently, the state has 46 autonomous institutions including 12 engineering colleges.

The constitution of the committee is also a fall out of the vice-chancellors’ conference held in March this year. A resolution was passed at the conference on the need to constitute such a committee.

The committee will also take up matters pertaining to development of universities, administrative and financial issues including grants from the state government and coordination with the University Grants Commission.

Bangalore University V-C N Prabhudev , University of Agriculture Sciences Dharwad V-C J H Kulkarni, University of Mysore V-C V G Talwar and Visvesvaraya Technological University V-C H P Kincha have been appointed as members of the committee.

Secretary to Governor Sharada Subramaniam will act as the convener of the committee.
“The committee shall sit at least once in every three months and review the progress made and submit reports to the chancellor”, states the notification issued by the Governor’s secretariat.

The committee will also work on bringing about uniformity in the nomination of members in various academic bodies of universities. When contacted, Dr Sherigara said he has already written to members to send feedback pertaining to their respective universities, on the various issues before the committee.

“We will together work out a road map and submit our suggestions to the Governor”, he said. Dr Sherigara said the committee would also consult and incorporate the suggestions made by the Karnataka Knowledge Commission. A preliminary meeting of the committee will be held during the third week of September, he added.