Go slow on innovative varsities

MYSORE: Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Director P Balaram stressed on the need of team work and concerted efforts to get people interested in higher education to develop and implement policies.He was speaking at the valedictory of the South Zone Vice-Chancellors’ Conference at Infosys campus, here on Saturday.He said that the government should go slow on calling universities world class or innovative as it would have implication on general universities. “It is better to call them as universities instead of world class universities.”Observing that production of knowledge and not wealth must be the primary role of universities, he said that people those passing out with knowledge would create wealth for the nation. Balaram said that teaching and research were two faces of the same coin and urged university faculty to interact with undergraduate students and encourage research projects at UG level.He averred that though the National Knowledge Commission recommended the creation of 1,500 universities, many new universities have been created without land, faculty and money.“As per the commission’s recommendations, the number of scholarships to cover students of all universities and research is likely to go up considerably.”