The Ministry for HRD, Government of India in an attempt to help Indian higher education institutions compete globally announced the list of selected institutes to be bestowed with the coveted ‘Institute of Eminence’ (IoE) tag. Fracas, accusations and criticism followed the announcement after the yet to be formed institution and so called, ‘Jio Institute’ figured in the list. Out of the six institutions selected, three are in the public sector and other three in the private sector. Besides Jio Institute the list includes BITS Pilani, MAHE from Manipal in the private sector while the IISc in Bengaluru and the IIT’s in Mumbai and Delhi respectively from the public sector.
But how can a status of ‘eminence’ be accorded when the institute has no existence? Sensing trouble, MHRD supposedly justified that currently it is only the ‘letter of intent’ tag that will be accorded to non-existent institution (read Jio Institute) and that the IoE status will be offered only after it fulfils expectations in 3 years time. This was a new addition to the already framed rules, and a wrongly timed after-thought attempting a cover up.
The idea about proposing IoE’s was first mooted in the 2016 Budget. The UGC (Declaration of Government Institutions as Institutions of Eminence) Guidelines, 2017 laid down the specifications for public institutions but had not allowed for ‘green-field’ or yet-to-be set up government institutions to get the IoE tag.
Subsequent amendment to clause 6.1 of UGC Regulation 2017 provided for ‘green-field’ projects to be considered. The ‘purpose’ of such amendment can now be
understood.
Accordingly, MHRD rolled out a scheme in September 2017 for receiving applications in a 90-day process. The deadline was extended to February 2018 even when 100 institutions had already applied. Now it seems clear that the extension too was done on ‘purpose’.
UGC formed a 4-member expert committee to shortlist 20 institutes, 10 each in the public and private sector and they were to be mandated to achieve world class status over 10 years. It is now in the public domain that when the initial deadline of December 31 was nearing, Reliance Foundation’s proposed ‘green-field’ institute had not submitted its application and was not ready with the necessary documents. The supposed ‘need’ for insertion of a green-field category is not understood when there was a large pool of existing and credible institutes for consideration already.
The eligibility bar too was set very high “ the regulation needed the sponsoring organization to have members whose total net worth is Rs 5,000 crores collectively. Not surprisingly, when the final list of IoE’s was announced it was realised that no other applicants in the ‘green-field’ category could comply with this specific requirement.
The issue became serious when the Economic Times broke the news that Jio Institute’s proposal was prepared based on inputs by Vinay Sheel Oberoi who was previously the Secretary of Higher Education in the MHRD and retired in March 2017. Oberoi is working presently as the Advisor to the educational initiatives for the Ambani’s.
In the meanwhile, Business Standard reported that the Reliance group incorporated the Reliance Foundation Institution of Education Research, the sponsor of Jio Institute, just two weeks before the government notified rules regarding IoE. It is also in the public domain that details such as names of Chancellor or Vice Chancellor, whose identification is one of the eligibility criteria was missing in Jio’s application.
As of today, Jio Institute exists only as a proposal but with a vision plan that perfectly suits the scheme. It is nothing but a promise to meet every requirement Jio Institute seems to have suggested that it will start in 2021 and will be in top 500 by 2031. This raises one more question, if the regulation stipulates to have an institution in top 500 in 10 years, how can a yet-to-be born institute which claims to fulfil the condition in 13 years be eligible for selection?
The selection committee also reportedly did a number of blunders. The methodology detailed gives no information on specific parameters and weightage in overall assessment of applicant institutions. There is no statistical or comparative assessment of applicants in the report. No field visits were conducted nor any rankings of institutions done.
The Committee changed the shortlist after the committee had decided to interact with only 40 institutes and asked them to give presentations. Abruptly more institutions were invited for interaction. Out of the four members attended the first round of meetings in Delhi, and the remaining 2 participated via video conference. The expert committee was told to draw a final list of 20, 10 in public and private category each. Instead the committee could find only 6 in total leaving top public-funded institutions operating over five decades like IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, Jadavpur University, University of Hyderabad, Delhi University and Anna University in waiting. The best private institutions like that of the ISB, Symbiosis, Amity, Amruta, OP Jindal, Ashoka, Thapar, Galgotia were also conveniently ignored.
Among the state-funded universities, the small, youngest and the genuine claim of the best emerging Goa University was sidelined.
The 3 selected public institutes are scheduled to get Rs 1000 crore each over 5 years. This is a mere Rs 200/year for each institute. The top 10 universities in the world spend annually over Rs 5,000 crore each on research alone. Further when there was no financial implication with respect to private institutions, there is no reason why the other best private institutions were deprived of IoE status. The MHRD seems to have been bolder in disrespecting the idea of transparency and fairness. Unfortunately the policy, procedure and the process of selecting institutions of ‘eminence’ has been marred by questions right from the
beginning.
