Puducherry has constituted a State Higher Education Council as per the guidelines of the central government-sponsored ‘Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan’ (RUSA), bringing all higher education institutions, including Arts and Science colleges and institutes of technical education, in the Union Territory under a single umbrella.
Puducherry State Higher Education Council (SHEC) will go on stream from mid-January. The Higher Education Minister will be its Chairman. The Secretary to Government (Higher Education) will be the Vice-Chairman and 15 other members, including Director of Higher and Technical Education, will be the other members.
The term of the members will be 2 — 6 years. “The SHEC has already been notified in the Government gazette and it will function from the annexe building of the Directorate of Technical Education in Lawspet. It will render advice to the government on strategic investments in higher education and universities on statute and ordinance formulation. It will propose general guidelines for release of grants by the government to university and other institutions of higher education and advise the government on release of such grants,” a top government official told The Hindu .
The SHEC would prepare the State Higher Education Plan and provide inputs to institutions for creating their plans and implementing them.
The first meeting of the SHEC would be held in mid-January to finalise the State Higher Education Plan.
The plan, consisting of projects prepared by all higher educational institutions, would be placed before the PSHEC.
Once approved, it would be forwarded to the Ministry of Human Resource Development for release of funds.
The council would evolve new concepts and perspective plans for development of higher education suo motu or on suggestions by the government.
The SHEC would get 65 per cent of the funds for the implementation the plan from the Central government, while the remaining 35 per cent would be provided by the Puducherry government.
The Union government had, in principle, agreed to sanction Rs. 49.47 crore to Puducherry for the current year.
It would ensure faculty quality enhancement initiatives, quality of examinations, promote innovations in research, maintain quality of curriculum, protect the autonomy of state institutions and provide approval for setting up new institutions/colleges and accreditation reforms.
