Team Blitz India
MUMBAI: The Maharashtra Cabinet has cleared a proposal laying down guiding principles for educational institutes to form cluster universities. This will pave the way for formation of new public universities in the State while bringing down burden on the existing universities.
The Governor will be the Chancellor for all these universities. National Higher Education Mission promotes such clubbing together of good educational institutes. Three cluster universities — Dr Homi Bhabha State University, Hyderabad Sindh National Collegiate University, Mumbai and Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil University at Satara have already been set up in the State.
According to the guidelines, the primary college of the cluster university should be active for more than 20 years, have more than 2,000 students, have a very good academic track record, possess necessary infrastructure, trained teachers and capability to coordinate the activities as a university. The overall university should have at least 4,000 students.
The primary college should have NAAC accreditation for at least five years with more than 3.25 CGPA rank or equivalent NBA marks or at least 50 per cent of the syllabus should be NBA approved.
For running the university seven posts including that of the Vice Chancellor and the Registrar will be created for which the State shall give Rs 1 crore for the first five years to the university.
Clubbing of at least two and maximum of five granted or nongranted colleges would be necessary and all faculties, except agriculture and science, can be involved in the cluster. For a cluster of more than five colleges, the State would assess the proposals first.
