Education Minister Nara Lokesh has vowed to introduce a unified act for proper administration of the universities in the state.
Vijayawada:Education Minister Nara Lokesh has vowed to introduce a unified act for proper administration of the universities in the state.
He was replying to the questions raised by members Bhumireddy Rajagopal Reddy, Duvvrapu Rama Rao and B Tirumala Naidu in the assembly on Monday. During Question Hour, the members sought details on private universities in the state and criteria adopted to confer university status and the details of control being exercised by the government on such universities.
The minister said the government has decided to come up with a unified act for proper administration of government universities. With regard to the private universities, he underscored the need to amend the Private Universities Act. Lokesh made it clear that the government would take a decision on this soon.
He said that in 2016, the then government had come up with a special act to set up private universities in AP. “As part of it, universities like VIT, SRM in Amaravati, Centurion in Vizianagaram and Krea in Nellore district were set up.” He claimed credit for taking up decentralisation of development by setting up varieties all over the state.
The YSRC government, he said, had accorded priority for the setting up of brownfield universities even by amending the act. Four universities including Mohan Babu University, Hanumacharya University, Godavari Global University and Aditya University were set up thus, he said.
The education minister said that the amendments carried out in the act resulted in a scenario of no private university being set up in AP, as the act was changed against the regulations of the UGC.
Lokesh referred to the norms of mandatory joint certification degrees and study in foreign universities to the extent of 30 per cent of the course, through a tie up with universities having NAAC accreditation and a host of others. He said that the new norms in the amended act discouraged the private universities from having their foothold in AP.
With regard to higher education, the minister said that the gross enrolment ratio was 36.5 per cent in AP against 47 per cent in Tamil Nadu and 41.3 per cent in Kerala. He promised to enhance the ratio.
He said that the government was reviewing the private universities act to enable good universities to step into the state. Accordingly, BITS was ready to set up its campus in Amaravati while the Centre too was planning to set up more number of foreign universities in the country.
On research institutions, the education minister said the setting up of A Global Institute of Good Governance (GIGG) was proposed in the cabinet. A cabinet sub-committee was set up with himself and ministers P Narayana and Payyavula Keshav as members wherein a research paper was also prepared.
Lokesh said the government would set up a world-class training institute for good governance in association with the Tony Blair Institute. The number of students pursuing PhD in AP was less when compared with Tamil Nadu, he said, and underscored the need to pay more attention on AI, Humanoids, Deep Tech etc.
He felt the need to set up a Deep Tech institution in Amaravati as the government was making efforts to set up an AI university in Visakhapatnam in addition to improving NIRF rankings to the state universities.
“We are setting up EAGLE (Elite Anti-Narcotics Group of Law Enforcement) committees in schools and universities to curb ganja and drugs,” the minister told the assembly.
