The Hindu : Front Page : Bharathiar University to adopt ‘cluster college’ concept

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Tuesday, Feb 26, 2008
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Bharathiar University to adopt ‘cluster college’ concept

Amutha Kannan

COIMBATORE: Subsequent to the announcement of Higher Education Minister K. Ponmudy’s proposal at the recently-held Vice-Chancellors’ meet in Chennai to form a group of colleges into a cluster to share resources, Bharathiar University will adopt the cluster concept from the next academic year, Vice-Chancellor G. Thiruvasagam told The Hindu.

“The university will adopt this system in such a way that there will be a mix of Government, aided, self-financing and private colleges in each cluster.

This will be different from the initial proposal of the Government of each cluster having the same type of colleges. Nine such clusters will be formed as a pilot project,” Mr. Thiruvasagam said.

The meet had left it to the discretion of the universities to adopt the cluster concept and also form the kind of cluster they wished to.

Principals’ meet

Bharathiar University is the first to have announced the implementation of the concept from the academic year 2008, according to the Vice-Chancellor.

The Vice-Chancellor plans to convene a meeting of college secretaries and principals in the first week of March, along with Joint Director of Collegiate Education V. Swaminathan, to discuss the system. An executive committee, in which the university representative will be the convener, will manage each cluster.

According to Mr. Thiruvasagam, the system would enable the colleges to share resources, manpower, equipment, knowledge and infrastructure.

“Most of the colleges that have specialised courses such as fashion technology, printing technology or catering and hotel management do not have the required infrastructure or qualified faculty to run the courses effectively. Some are in such a poor state that the department has to be closed down. The cluster concept will help address this problem, as an alternative,” Mr. Thiruvasagam said.

The colleges that would come under one cluster and the kind of sharing they would do would be discussed and a memorandum of understanding signed.

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