With the University Grants Commission (UGC) identifying Kanchi Mamunivar Centre for Post Graduate Studies as a “College with Potential for Excellence” (CPE), an action plan is being drawn up to improve academic infrastructure at the centre.
This includes establishing a language laboratory, smart classrooms and instrumentation centre.
The centre is among 149 colleges across the country to be identified under the CPE scheme in the third phase of the 11th Five Year Plan. Established in 1989 by the Puducherry government, the centre has 12 departments and admits 265 students for postgraduate courses, 120 for M.Phil. and 30 to 40 for Ph.D. every year.
“The objective of the scheme is to enable colleges to improve academic infrastructure and adopt innovation in teaching, learning and evaluation. It will help us to march towards excellence,” said O.P. Shyma, director of the centre.
Public Works Minister M.O.H.F. Shahjahan, who also holds the Collegiate Education portfolio, had announced in the territorial Assembly that the centre would start functioning as a CPE from 2010-2011.
Under the scheme, the UGC has allotted Rs. 1.70 crore for the centre, of which Rs. 75 lakh has already been disbursed, she said, adding, “We have formed a steering committee and are preparing an action plan which has to be approved by the expert committee of UGC. We also visited two colleges in Chennai which had been identified under the scheme earlier.”
Some of the features of the action plan include establishment of a language laboratory and instrumentation centre with latest equipment for research. “We are planning to provide a modern smart classroom with facilities such as audio-visual teaching aids for each department. A computational laboratory for high-level research is planned,” she said.
The centre is looking at extension and survey work based on research activities and needs of society such as adopting villages, documentation of ecosystem and medicinal value of fish and Aurobindo studies, Ms. Shyma said.
Under the Eleventh Five Year Plan, the UGC has also sanctioned Rs. one crore for the centre towards departmental development and merged schemes which includes stipend for meritorious students, coaching classes for NET, remedial coaching for weak students and coaching for placement. It has also given Rs. 20 lakh for basic scientific research development. The funds are for the period 2010-2011 and 2011-2012.
Though the centre has adequate funds in hand, it is facing constraints in buildings. Its proposal to the government for construction of auditorium, computer lab and library was approved in 2004 by a high-level committee but has not yet materialised.
