After no Indian institute found a place in the Top 200 ranks of the list of World Universities, the Human Resources and Development Ministry of India decided to work on improving its institutions. With regard to the poor performance of the Indian institutes, HRD Ministry declared to entitle 20 universities-10 Public and 10 Private, with the status of Institutions of Eminence (IOE).
What is IOE?
The institutes granted with the status of Institutions of Eminence will have complete academic and administrative autonomy. They enjoy more autonomy than any other higher education institutions. These institutes have the freedom to decide their fee structure for domestic as well as foreign students. “They can admit foreign students up to 30 percent of the admitted students and recruit foreign faculty up to 25 per cent of the faculty strength”.
They will have the freedom to “determine the fee of domestic students, subject to the condition that no student who gains admission should be turned away for lack of finance”. This will be ensured by providing scholarships and loans to the students with a poor financial background.
Not only the IOEs will have full autonomy, they will also receive a huge grant from the government. It is decided to grant ₹1000 crore to each public institution entitled with the status of an IOE. This will be done to ensure these institutes get a world-class status. Whereas the private institutions will not be entitled to any grant. The concept of IOE is proposed to increase the status of Indian institutions and achieve them a place among top world universities and to improve the academic and research quality of these institutions.
HRD Ministry declared six institutions as Institutions of Eminence, 3 public and 3 private. These institutes as an IOE will be entitled to full autonomy and special incentives to project them as “world class universities”.
The government institutes which have been accorded the title are Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and Indian Institute of Science (IISC), Bangalore. The 3 private institutes selected as IOE are JIO Institute by Reliance Foundation, BITS Pilani and Manipal Academy of High Education.
The list was compiled by a highly qualified and respected committee for the HRD Ministry. HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar tweeted,”This decision is a landmark decision for following reasons -This was never thought off & tried; it is more than a graded autonomy, it is really a full autonomy to the institutes; the institutes can take their own decisions”.
After the names of the institutes were declared who will enjoy full autonomy, there were mixed reactions. Most of the people including opposition questioned the inclusion of JIO Institute in the list. They have raised doubts as the institute is still only on paper. They have demanded why it is included when there is no actual institution yet.
Senior Minister R Subramanyam defended the decision regarding JIO Institution. “As Jio institute is starting on a greenfield mode, they will only get ‘Letter of Intent’ which states they must set-up in 3 yrs. If they set up, then they get ‘IOA’ status, right now they don’t have the tag, they only have a letter of intent,” said R Subramanyam, Secretary, Higher Education.
We do not know yet whether the aim of giving the IOE status to these universities will improve the performance of Indian universities in the world ranking or not. This is a unique step by the government, only time will tell how successful it will be.