VIJAYAWADA: M S Vijayaraghavan, former advisor to National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) and founder of Mission REACH (Relevance and Excellence in Achieving new heights in educational institutions) is now experimenting with a concept that can equally benefit the academia and industry at the same time negating the role of government but making the relationship between the two more meaningful and mutually beneficial.
Explaining the genesis of Centres of Relevance and Excellence (CORE), during his interaction with senior faculty members of VR Siddhartha College of Engineering, one of the 31 TIFAC-CORE centres in the country, here on Thursday, he said in CORE the academia, industry and the government would come together. The government would play the role of a facilitator and all the three partners would invest equally in the project.
“Money is the force that keeps the three partners of CORE together with all benefiting from the endeavour. I thought, what if there is another concept that can equally benefit the academia and industry while at the same time negating the role of government but making the relationship between the two more meaningful and mutually beneficial. The experiment is now being carried out with a deemed university and an industry,’’ he said.
Elaborating the concept, Vijayaraghavan, who had worked closely with former President APJ Abdul Kalam when the latter was the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, said an industrial unit was in need of particular skill sets and an academic institute had the wherewithal to design courses. Both had to work together to come out with tailor-made courses at the post-graduate level.
“The deemed university and the industrial unit have agreed to experiment with the concept. I thought that students too should benefit and approached the industry for a paid internship.
An industrial unit has agreed to the idea. Then I approached some private banks for 100 per cent education loans with salary linkage for repayment. They were more than willing,” he said.