T.C. Shivashankara Murthy, Vice-Chancellor of Mangalore University, said here on Saturday that till Friday, the Government had permitted eight new colleges to start functioning from this year. Approval had been sought by 14 colleges, which had recently been given affiliation by the university.
He was speaking at the inauguration of Sharada Degree College, which is among the approved colleges. The college is managed by the Tulunadu Education Trust.
Mr. Murthy said that 25 colleges had applied for affiliation.
The university now had 172 affiliated and five autonomous degree colleges in its jurisdiction.
There was a need to open more colleges imparting quality education to increase the student enrolment ratio for higher education from the present 12.4 per cent to at least 23 per cent to match the world average. To achieve this target, the country needed 35,000 new colleges and 800 more universities.
Home Minister V.S. Acharya, who inaugurated the college, said that excellence was the key to survival in any field. Minister for Environment, Ecology, Ports and In-land Water Transport J. Krishna Palemar said that educational institutions should create more awareness among students on sanitation and environment protection.
President of the trust M.B. Puranik said that the new college would offer BBM and B.Com courses in the building of Sharada Pre-University College at Kodialbail. A site had been bought at Matadakani for constructing the new college.
Visvesha Tirtha of the Pejawar Math spoke.
MLA N Yogish Bhat and Mayor Rajani Dugganna were present.
