Lokmat News Network
Aurangabad, Aug 1: The number of private universities will increase across the State in the coming days with the implementation of the ‘Vertical University Campus (VUC)’ idea. An educational society which has a 20,000 square meters constructed area will be able to start a private university on the line of international universities of America and UK.
It may be noted there is one Central University, 23 public universities and 21 private universities. Despite this, the number of students pursuing higher education is growing. There are hundreds of colleges affiliated to each public university. They have a burden of handling a large number of students and difficulty in providing quality education due to hundreds of vacant posts of teaching and non-teaching staff members. The figure for private universities cannot be increased due to various strict conditions. The State Government issued guidelines to set up self-finance universities in January 2019. As per the guidelines, there should be 10 acres of land in metro cities for a private university while for district and tehsil level, it should have 15 acres of land. The minimum land required for a university in rural is 25 acres of land. When contacted, joint director of Technical Education Umesh Nagdeve said that those educational institutes which want autonomy can go for vertical university campuses.
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Land size to be reduced
The officers from the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) from Mumbai said that one of the main hurdles in opening a private university big land size.
“It is mandatory to have 10 acres of land and 1.5 lakh feet of constructed area for a private university. The availability of required land size is not possible in big cities. Many educational institutes wish to establish a private university but cannot do this due to required land conditions. The Government wants to fix the policy for VUC establishment. The Department of Higher and Technical Education started inviting suggestions and objections from educational institutes and individuals for the proposed idea,” they said.
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VUC emerging due to land scarcity
Former vice chancellor and educationist Dr Sudhir Gavhane said that the ‘Vertical University’ concept has emerged in recent times and adopted in urban settings, to find a solution for the high cost of urban land and rarity of its availability as well as the difficulty getting the required land in a metro city.
“Most of the universities in the world are in a horizontal setting with purpose-built building and out-of-class open and green spaces supplemental to calm, pleasant, peaceful eco-friendly environment. This out-of-class green and open space gives an atmosphere suitable for the students-teachers community. However, due to space scarcity in big cities, the vertical university idea has come forth, to provide a solution to space crisis by building high-rise and tall tower buildings to create spaces required for academic purposes as well as an earning or income generation resource,” he said.