Meta-university project misses its deadline, likely to take off in Jan

Meta-university project announced by the Prime Minister in 2011 and subsequently given shape by four of the country's top universities — Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi and Delhi University (DU) — will only take off in January 2013, nearly six months after its proposed deadline.

Although JMI and DU have taken the initiative in preparing the courses and getting them approved by their respective Academic Councils, no dates have been fixed or announced for conducting admission tests.

The two universities have recently announced two courses under meta-university project — a diploma in public health and a masters in Mathematics Education.

The course is equivalent to MSc Mathematics Education, DU's Dean (Academics) Malashri Lal said., Jawaharlal Nehru University and IIT-Delhi have not come on board for these courses.

IIT-Delhi Director R K Shevgaonkar said, "We ((JNU and IIT) wanted more time to work out the details for conducting such courses and this is why we have stayed out of it for now." said the JNU and IIT-Delhi would be starting research in areas of common interest within the next six months.

Speaking to Newsline this year, JNU Vice-Chancellor S K Sopory had also raised similar concerns.

He had said that they would like to work out the modalities of sharing courses between universities.

"We need to discuss and ascertain who will give out degrees and how credit-sharing will work between universities," the Vice-Chancellor had said.

A joint admission committee of JMI and Delhi University is working on a schedule for conducting the meta-university courses approved by the academic councils of both universities.

The total number of seats for the course has been fixed at 20 in the first year (10 each for JMI and DU).

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