BHUBANESWAR: In a move to unburden universities from the administrative responsibilities of a large number of affiliated colleges, the Department of Higher Education has proposed to set up cluster college universities.
Under the college cluster university scheme, 10 to 20 colleges in a region form a cluster and are granted autonomy to share infrastructure and teaching faculty and function like a university.
This is a part of the department’s plans to implement the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) programme. The department has sent a proposal to the Ministry of Human Resource Development to start three cluster universities in the State and it would be placed before the project approval board of the Ministry.
Once the cluster is established, these colleges will no longer be affiliated to their parent universities. Another advantage of the system is that lesser known colleges will be able to improve their quality.
Officials said the load of affiliated colleges is actually affecting the output of universities and restricting academic advancement and quality improvement of the university concerned. Conducting examination, affiliation works and syllabus revision are consuming enormous time of these universities.
As a pre-requisite, the colleges should have adequate academic, physical and technical infrastructural facilities. Besides, the colleges should be running for 15 years, have existing enrolment of 2,000 students and should be within a radius of 15-20 kms from the lead institution.
In principle, the University Grants Commission (UGC) had earlier decided that no university in the country should have more than 100 affiliated colleges.