The University Grants Commission (UGC) and Ministry of HRD are set to hold a meeting with the heads of all higher education institutions. These insititutions are the ones which are eligible to apply for the ‘Institutions of Eminence’ (IoE) tag. And this meeting to be held later this month is being held to brief them on the contours of the scheme.
Eligibility for Seeking IoE Status
According to the ministry sources, among public institutions, 19 IITs, 13 NITs, 13 IIMs, four IISERs, 12 central universities, 32 state universities, 11 public deemed to be universities and two other Institutes of National Importance — Atal Bihari Vajpayee Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management in Jabalpur and Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology in Shibpur — are eligible to apply for IoE status.
The application window will be open for three months. The meeting with heads of eligible private institutions will be held on October 27.
The IoE Privilege
— proposed to have greater autonomy compared to other higher education institutions
— free to decide their fee for domestic and foreign students and have a flexible course duration and structure
— academic collaborations with foreign institutions will be exempt from approvals of government or UGC except institutions based in the MEA’s and MHA’s list of negative countries
– once identified, the target for the IoEs would be to break into the top 500 bracket in one internationally reputed ranking framework in 10 years and come up in the top 100 over time.
The 10 government institutions, in addition to the autonomy, will also get Rs 1,000 crore each from the HRD Ministry to achieve world-class status. The government will offer no financial assistance to the private institutions.
