Key educational institutions, which are also heritage structures, will finally get a revamp.
The recent budget saw announcements on the restoration of three heritage structures. These are the 118-year-old Victoria Students’ Hostel in Presidency College, the Queen Mary’s College and the Government Arts and Science College of Kumbakonam. The structures will be renovated at a cost of ₹26 crore.
Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami had announced during the 175 anniversary celebrations of Presidency College that it would get two new hostels. He also announced that the government would consider the Principal’s request for renovation of the heritage structure.
The government also decided to allocate ₹500.65 crore towards block grants given to universities. Half of the allocation — around ₹250 crore — will, however, go to Annamalai University.
For many years, State universities have been cash-strapped as block grants have not been revised. A retired professor said the block grants were last revised before 2000. “The money goes towards Plan expenditure. Up to 1995, the quantum, though small, was revised periodically but then, the universities were also smaller in size,” he said.
As the universities expanded thanks to new proposals, either from the Planning Commission or the University Grants Commission, the expenses increased.
With no revision of the block grants, the Universities fell back on research grants or took loans from their fixed deposits or dipped into pension corpus.
“The bulk of the universities’ expenses were met from distance education programmes. This led to a huge growth in distance education and the result was the poor quality of degrees,” the professor said. The government has allocated ₹4,620.20 crore this year for higher education, around ₹940 crore more than last year.
Medical education
In the coming financial years, the government proposes to increase the number of seats in medical colleges. Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam said the government would take efforts to add 345 medical seats in the next few years. The government medical colleges in Madurai, Tirunelveli, Kanniyakumari and Coimbatore are expected to benefit from the move.
