Kolkata: After Delhi, West Bengal will soon become the next Indian state to have a Meta University. The three popular higher education institutions of the state, namely, University of Calcutta (popularly known as Calcutta University-CU), Visva Bharati University and Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta (IIM-C), shall come together to form a Meta University, which will become functional from the upcoming academic session.
According to the sources, Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) has selected Calcutta University, to join the league of the existing Meta University in national capital, Delhi, which is a combined effort of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Delhi University (DU). The central government is trying to make successive improvements in the higher education system in India. In doing so, Meta Universities will play a significant role in bringing Indian institutions at par with leading foreign Universities.
While making the declaration of this decision, Suranjan Das, Vice-Chancellor (VC), CU, said that the Calcutta University has informed MHRD, that it is interested in providing courses in management and liberal arts. The VC further explained that University students would certainly be benefited by taking custom-made management courses at IIM-C or fine / performing arts courses at Visva Bharati University. Expressing joy, he also said that the University is delighted to be associated with IIM-C and Vishwa Bharati, in the Meta University project.
As the collaboration is finalized, the three institutions would now collectively identify areas which can mutually be taken up and then, accordingly draft the curricula. Informing more about the same, Sushanta Dutta Gupta, VC, Visva Bharati, said that the University has already notified CU that it can offer exclusive tailor-made courses in the liberal arts, Japanese and Chinese languages and agricultural development, for its students.
Dutta further anticipated that with the guidance of IIM-C, the University is also expecting to re-activate its own management course, which was terminated years back. He further added Visva Bharati would make best use of the resources made available by CU in the areas of pure and bio sciences. The faculties of all three institutions have been updated about these developments and asked to draft shorter courses as well as papers, as per the specified areas of study.
Reportedly, the concept of Meta University in India was envisioned by Shashi Tharoor, Junior MHRD minister, in December last year. Later, the minister proposed to identify leading Institutions which can collectively take initiatives to share knowledge and allow students to pursue varied options. At that time, three popular Universities were selected for it, namely, JNU, CU and the University of Hyderabad. Further working along the lines, all of them were asked to select suitable sub-ordinate Universities, which could collaborate with them to form Meta University chains.
Subsequently, JNU decided to pool resources with DU and Jamia Milia Islamia, and now, Calcutta University has proposed before the MHRD that, it would tie-up with IIM-C and Visva Bharati University. Whereas, it has been informed that University of Hyderabad (also known as Hyderabad University) has settled with the decision to collaborate with the Indian School of Business (ISB) and the English and Foreign Languages University (EFL University), both located in Hyderabad.
