By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, DEC 13, 2017: THE Centre had approved the enabling regulatory architecture for setting up or upgrading of 10 public and 10 private Institutions of Eminence so as to enable them to reach amongst top 100 of world institutions ranking. Accordingly, applications were invited, for which the last date was 12.12.2017. Overall 100 applications have been received. Under Public Sector, 10 Central Universities, 25 State Universities, 6 Deemed to be Universities, 20 Institutions of National Importance and 6 Standalone Institutions have applied. Under Private Sector, 9 Private Universities and 16 Deemed to be Universities have applied in brownfield category and 8 Institutions have applied in greenfield category. 

Overwhelming response to the idea of Institutions of Eminence, which will become World Class Universities, is a validation of the vision of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi for improving the quality of Higher Education in India, Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said.

The selection shall be made through challenge method mode by the Empowered Expert Committee constituted for the purpose. The selected 20 institutions shall be named as Institutions of Eminence which will have freedom to choose their own path to become world class institutions. These institutions shall be provided with greater autonomy viz. to admit foreign students up to 30% of admitted students; to recruit foreign faculty upto 25% of faculty strength; to offer online courses upto 20% of its programmes; to enter into academic collaboration with top 500 in the world ranking Institutions without permission of UGC; free to fix and charge fees from foreign students without restriction; flexibility of course structure in terms of number of credit hours and years to take a degree; complete flexibility in fixing of curriculum and syllabus, etc.

The scheme will enable Indian students to get world class education and research facilities within the country.