The University Grants Commission has selected seven colleges in the State for grant of funds under its Colleges with Potential for Excellence programme.
Of the five colleges affiliated to the University of Madras that has received grants, three are women’s colleges. The other two are co-education colleges.
It is an achievement for the University too, which had only one college – Ethiraj College, the CPE status for the period 2014-19.
The institutions identified include Women’s Christian College, Stella Maris, Justice Basheer Ahmed College for Women (erstwhile SIET), Madras Christian College and D.G. Vaishnav College. The decision was made at the meeting held on Tuesday, said H. Devraj, UGC vice-chairman.
The other two colleges are CMS College of Coimbatore and Vivekananda College from Madurai.
Each college will receive Rs. 1.50 crore over a five-year period. The grants will be extended two more times based on their performance and inclination to improve their facilities, Prof. Devraj added.
MCC plans renovation
Principal and secretary of MCC, R.W. Alexander Jesudasan, said the college had proposed to renovate the institution and provide facilities to women students.
“Of the 7,000 students on campus 50 per cent are women and we wanted to improve amenities such as rest rooms. We also plan to digitise our library. We plan to renovate our science laboratories with alumni funding,” he said.
D.G. Vaishnav College has plans to introduce smart classes for all postgraduate classes and final year undergraduate students, said Principal M. Venkatramanan. “We received extension for continuing with the autonomy for seven years which also helped us plan to conduct certificate courses for foreign languages. Language laboratories are being developed also,” he said.
Of the 5 colleges affiliated to
Madras university, 3 are women’s colleges
