The Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) has been granted a University status from University Grants Commission (UGC). The institute is one of the prestige institutes in journalism which functions under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
“Based on the committee’s recommendation and inspection team’s feedback, the UGC has recommended that the ministry should issue a Letter of Intent (LoI) to the journalism school under the ‘De Novo’ category. The status will enable the institute to grant degrees instead of diplomas,” a senior UGC official said. ‘De Novo’ refers to an institution which focuses on teaching and research in emerging areas of knowledge. “We are looking forward to the LoI. So far, we were preparing students for the industry but deemed university status would enable us to offer postgraduate courses including Masters, MPhil and PhD and thereby we would be able to prepare students for the academia as well,” IIMC Director General KG Suresh said.
The UGC had last year formed a four-member committee headed by BK Kutgiala, the vice- chancellor of Makhanial Chaturvedi University, Bhopal to analyse the proposal by IIMC.