Saturday, June 1, 2019

Madras univ plans startup ecosystem

Varsity To Get ₹15cr For Setting Up Career Hub

Ragu.Raman@timesgroup.com

Chennai:01.06.2019

University of Madras will provide a startup eco-system for students and will revamp courses related to entrepreneurship and self-employment from the coming academic year, said P Duraisamy, vice-chancellor of the university.

Under the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) phase II scheme, the university would receive ₹15 crore from MHRD for creating an entrepreneurship and career hub at the university. The facility would be accessible for students from university departments and its affiliated colleges, he told TOI.

“The university has already received ₹7.5 crore under the scheme. We plan to set up a separate cell for helping the students to launch startups. We also plan to revamp the courses to hone their entrepreneurship skills,” said Duraisamy, who has completed two years as vice-chancellor of the university.

Listing out various academic reforms introduced in the past two years, he said the university was ranked 41 in NIRF rankings two years ago, but has now moved up to be among top 20 universities in the country.

“The university has introduced plagiarism check and online monitoring system to improve quality of PhDs. We have instituted Best Thesis and Best Teacher awards to encourage quality research, leading to publications and patents,” he said.

The Institute of Distance Education (IDE) was marred by corruption and malpractices in exams and payment system. Now, the IDE is completely revamped and even aggressively planning to introduce online courses, he said. “After finding out that the three study centres outside the state cheated in examinations, we closed all the centres outside Tamil Nadu. We also introduced online payment to eliminate malpractices in the challan payment system,” he said.

The university also introduced choice-based credit system (CBCS) and common syllabus for distance education programmes. Due to the ban on recruitment for the last two years, the vacancies in the university have risen to more than 50%.

“We will soon begin the recruitment after consulting the state government. Many of our departments do not have the minimum six faculty members required to get aid from UGC and other funding agencies. We will try to fill at least the government sanctioned posts,” the vice-chancellor said.

For the next one year, Duraisamy said, his priority would be to bring the university out of its current financial crisis.

“The university has huge potential. We will aim to move up in our rankings and will lay the road map to become category-1 university which ushers in greater autonomy and funding,” Duraisamy said.

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