K'taka to develop 'Super 30' engineering colleges

Bengaluru, Oct 23 (IANS) With an aim to develop 'Super 30' engineering colleges by taking up one college in each district of Karnataka, a committee will be formed to work towards providing quality teaching in every district, and to meet industry requirements.

The committee -- headed by Prof. Karisiddappa, Vice-Chancellor, Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), will comprise of academicians, industry leaders, officials among others.

This was decided in the preliminary meeting chaired by C.N.Ashwath Narayan, the Minister for Higher Education, on Friday.

The purpose is to focus on providing quality teaching in every district and to meet industry requirements. Wherever the government college exists that will be considered on priority and in districts with no government college, private engineering colleges will be selected, Narayan stated.

Colleges known for quality will not be included in this. But those which lack quality teaching will only be taken up to be developed as model colleges. The development would mainly concentrate on faculty training, industry collaborations, setting up of laboratories, foreign collaborations, and such other things rather than physical infrastructure, the Minister emphasized.

To begin with, one department in each selected college will be taken up for up-gradation and later on, it will be expanded to the whole college. The funds needed for this will be shared in the ratio of 1/3rd by CSR funding of companies, 1/3rd by VTU, and 1/3rd by the institution itself, Narayana explained.

It was decided in the meeting to connect the selected colleges with the leading industries and to allow industries to guide the colleges as anchoring institutes. It was also suggested to loop in alumni students in this attempt.