THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : Higher Education Minister K T Jaleel on Wednesday said the proposed Open university will become a reality by next year. Presiding over the meeting of aided school managers and principals, Jaleel said henceforth no new self- financing courses will be allowed in aided colleges.
After the Open university is established, distance education and private registration will come under it and with this the rush to secure admission to universities and colleges will come down, the minister said.The government will give all support to aided colleges to improve the infrastructure facilities as well as the quality of education imparted, he said. The minister said once the adalat on the workload gets over, efforts will be taken to create new posts.
A meeting with the Finance Minister to create new academic posts will be held and it will be preceded by a meeting of the aided school managers. According to the minister, NAAC accreditation should be taken before December 31 and the colleges should provide online services from the next academic year.
Aided and self-financing courses offered by the colleges should be displayed on separate websites and self- financing colleges should stop the practice of charging staggering amount as fees.Details of teachers should be displayed on websites and they should be part of conducting examinations, he said.
The minister called upon the managements to ensure CCTV coverage in schools and strengthen the National Service Scheme(NSS) and the NCC. College Union activities should be initiated in the colleges and this will prevent the institutions from falling into the hands of mafia groups, minister said.
Complaint redressal cells should be started in all colleges and when non- teaching staff are employed they should be able to handle e-governance, Jaleel said while calling for increased participation from aided school teachers in the Salary Challenge.
Those institutions which are RUSA(Rashtreeya Uchathar Sikhsa Abhyan) qualified to get funds should complete the projects in a time bound manner, the minister said. One hundred and two aided colleges, nine training colleges, five self-financing colleges, 10 government colleges and 2 universities - which include a total of 128 institutions - will be allocated second stage funds under RUSA, Jaleel said.
These funds should be utilised within 10-15 months and Kerala is among the first three states which receive more RUSA funds and the agency has considered funding for institutions which have a NAAC rating of 3.5 and above. Such colleges will receive Rs 2 crore of which `40 lakh is government contribution and `40 lakh is college contribution.
Self-financing colleges will get a RUSA funding of Rs 5 crore and as a first step if colleges deposit `20 lakh, a first instalment of Rs 1 crore will be deposited by the agency in the college account.
College Higher Education director Haritha V Kumar and other officers participated in the meeting.