IITs to offer medicine courses? Draft UGC rules call for phasing out domain-specific institutes

IITs to offer medicine courses: The University Grants Commission’s draft guidelines released on Saturday seek to potentially change the higher education system as seen today.

Standalone, domain-specific institutions should be phased out and make way for multidisciplinary institutions, suggest the latest University Grants Commission (UGC) draft guidelines that were released on Saturday.

The implication is that institutions offering a single discipline like medicine, engineering, management should be transformed into an institution offering all under one roof.

This type of environment is designed as it is, as it looks, as it is, beautifully designed. Most of the college wardens have connections worldwide, who bestows them with the power of a degree. But the rules are being prepared according to the rules.

“Converting higher education institutions into multi-disciplinary institutions” is the title of the draft guidelines issued on Saturday. They have been put up for public response, with the panel seeking a response by March 20.

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Many higher education institutions in India have already started adopting a multidisciplinary approach. For example, some old Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) now have strong management and humanities departments in addition to engineering.

Many private universities like Shiv Nadar University and OP Jindal University are also multidisciplinary. Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) also opened an engineering department and is now looking to open a medical college.

“Internationally, the culture of establishing and sustaining a multidisciplinary university is increasing fast, thereby maximizing productivity with an enhanced focus towards research and development, innovation, and incubation,” the guidelines read.

It is, therefore, appropriate to phase out stand-alone, fragmented, and domain-specific higher education institutions (HEIs) for the Higher Education System (HES) and instead create HEI clusters and multidisciplinary HEIs, the document said.

Dual-major degree? Double degree from two different streams?

The draft guidelines suggest that the overall higher education sector will be an integrated system including professional and vocational education.

It also seeks to open necessary departments for multidisciplinary subjects including languages, literature, music, philosophy, ideology, art, dance, theatre, education, mathematics, statistics, pure and applied science, sociology, economics, sports, translation, and interpretation gives suggestions.

It calls for three types of institutions – multidisciplinary research-intensive universities, multidisciplinary teaching-intensive universities, and degree-granting multidisciplinary autonomous colleges.

The guidelines also spell out the ways in which two institutions can partner to offer dual-major degrees and dual degrees from two different streams.

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For dual-major degrees, the guidelines say: “Under collaborative arrangements, single-stream institutions can integrate their programms with nearby multidisciplinary institutions to provide them with their own programms. As an example As a B.Ed course, integrated with a B.A. Integrated Teacher Education Program (ITEP), and offers a combination of BA-B.Ed.

In another arrangement, students enrolled in one institution may pursue a first degree at the host institution and a second degree at a partnering institution leading to a dual degree. For example, two institutes may partner to offer B.Sc and MBA dual degree programms.

“A Memorandum of Understanding may be signed between partner institutions to offer dual degrees with the approval of the University, the State Government, and/or regulatory bodies, including the number of seats, modalities of transition from one institution to another. All aspects are included. conferring one more, more degree,” the guidelines add.

Additionally, the guidelines also suggest clustering of colleges that have poor enrollment.

“Existing colleges running on the same campus or in close proximity may form a cluster. This will ensure that colleges with poor enrollment and low resources can offer multidisciplinary programms and have access to better facilities for the benefit of all.

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The document states that students can take study programms partly at the parent institute and partly at the partner institute(s) in the cluster.

The guidelines state that over time “it is envisaged that each college will either develop as an autonomous degree-granting college or become a constituent college of a university. In the latter case, it will be a part of the university as a whole.”