Odisha treads with caution on its cluster varsity plan
BHUBANESWAR: After failing to operate the Khallikote autonomous college as a cluster university, the Higher Education department is now taking cautious steps towards framing modalities for clustering colleges into smaller universities under the National Education Policy-2020.
With University Grants Commission (UGC) pushing for the implementation of NEP by June this year, the department aims to ready some components of the policy for higher education in the new academic session and setting up cluster universities is on the agenda.
The NEP suggests a grouping of one university with four to five-degree colleges in its vicinity to form a cluster university that would lessen the administrative burden on the university and boost research. The colleges would be affiliated with the university.
Apart from the two law universities, one open university and one Sanskrit university, the state has 10 public universities. Among them, Utkal University is the most burdened with over 300 colleges affiliated to it. The cluster university concept is sharing of the existing pool of faculty members, lab facilities and books among all the institutions under the cluster university. Students will have the option of studying in their parent institution and also the partner institution.
“For example, if one institution under the cluster university has a good physics teacher, students from other colleges in the group can attend his classes at the institution. This can be done for all other subjects. Besides, teachers and PG students of one institution can do research in the partner college if it has good labs and instruments,” said vice-chancellor of Khallikote University PK Mohanty.
However, with many of the colleges in the state facing a crisis of faculty members and infrastructure like labs, the clustering of colleges will not be an easy task for the Odisha State Council of Higher Education which has been assigned the task of framing the modalities, said academicians.
A council official said in many parts of the state where colleges are located at least 20 km away from one another and connectivity remains an issue, the cluster concept is difficult. “Since UGC has been insisting on opening cluster universities, we will go ahead with the plan in the new session. But to implement it, we may opt for SWAYAM under the Ministry of Education or the State Open University to provide online classes in non-practical subjects or subjects where there is a teachers shortage,” he said.
Khallikote cluster university which was set up under the Rashtriya Ucchatar Shiksha Abhiyan scheme in 2015-16 could not function properly because of a lack of infrastructure and readiness on the part of the university administration to implement the new concept. The five colleges under it were brought back to Berhampur University and Khallikote was made a unitary university in 2021.