Governor K. Sankaranarayanan has asked the state government to make universities in the state more efficient and student friendly by bifurcating them due to their large college base. He also asked them to work towards implementing the new universities act as it is expected to rectify lacunae in the higher education sector to a large extent.
The governor made the statement during the annual meeting with vice-chancellors of state-run universities at Sahyadri guest house on September 3. CM Prithviraj Chavan, who was also present in the meeting, said that the state was working towards setting up separate universities for engineering and sports.
Voicing concern over delay in declaration of result of various university exams, the governor directed the VCs to declare all examination results within 30 days and latest by 45 days. In this connection, he asked the universities to implement the recommendations of the Rajesh Agarwal Committee to bring about examination reforms and to avoid malpractices in the conduct of examination.
Expressing serious concern over the quality of education, the CM called for evolving a system of ranking colleges and universities within the state to create a spirit of competition among them.
Mentioning that the state government has formed a State Innovation Council under the chairmanship of eminent scientist Dr Raghunath A. Mashelkar, the chief minister asked the universities to prepare their innovation reports and submit the same to the governor on a periodic basis.
He also announced a sanction of `2 crore as a matching contribution to the amount pledged by the Indian Merchants’ Chamber to the University of Mumbai to institute a chair.