N Gopalaswami Committee to select top 20 educational institutes of eminence

Government  has constituted Empowered Expert Committee (EEC) to select 20 Institutions of Eminence from among 104 institutions (public or private) that have applied for the status.
The committee will be headed by former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) N Gopalaswami. Its other members are Professor Tarun Khanna, director of South Asia Institute at Harvard University, Renu Khator, president of University of Houston and former director of IIM Lucknow, Pritam Singh.

Institutions of Eminence

The scheme of Institutions of Eminence was rolled out by University Grants Commission (UGC). It aims to help 20 higher education (10 public and 10 private) institutions from country break into top 500 global rankings in 10 years, and then eventually break into top 100 over time.
These selected institutions are proposed to have greater autonomy compared to other higher education institutions. They will be free to decide their fee for domestic and foreign students and have flexible course duration and structure.
They will be exempted from approvals of government or UGC for academic collaborations with foreign institutions, except institutions in MEA and MHA’s list of negative countries.
Once identified, the target for Institutions of Eminence will be to break into top 100 bracket in one internationally reputed ranking framework in 10 years. The 10 government institutions selected will also get Rs 1,000 crore each from HRD Ministry to achieve world-class status. There will be no financial assistance to the private institutions.
Only higher education institutions, currently placed in the top 500 of global rankings or top 50 of National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), are eligible to apply for eminence tag. The private Institutions of Eminence can also come up as greenfield ventures provided sponsoring organisation submits convincing perspective plan for 15 years.

Month: Current Affairs - February, 2018