IITs, other Institutes of Eminence can set up offshore campuses now — UGC issues new rules

The new regulations allow IoEs to start a maximum of three off-campus centres in five years, but not more than one in an academic year.

IIT Bombay campus | Twitter

New Delhi: The Institutes of Eminence (IoEs) in India, such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), will now be allowed to establish their campuses outside the country.

The University Grants Commission has amended its regulation for IoEs and included a clause allowing offshore campuses for such institutes. It released the new UGC (Institutions of Eminence Deemed to be Universities) (Amendments) Regulations 2021, Thursday.

Currently, the Narendra Modi government has declared 20 institutes — 10 private and 10 public, including IIT-Delhi, IIT-Bombay, IIT-Madras, IIT-Kharagpur, IISc and University of Hyderabad, among others — as IoEs.

As reported by ThePrint earlier, the central government had started working on the plan to allow top ranked Indian institutions like the IITs to set up campuses abroad last year itself. In August 2020, the ministry had asked all IoEs whether they would be interested in setting up campuses outside India, as this is a provision the new National Education Policy allows. The government has now come up with rules and regulations for the same.

The terms

According to the amended regulations, an IoE shall be permitted to start a maximum of three off-campus centres in five years, but not more than one in an academic year.

An institution willing to establish an off-campus centre shall have to submit an application to the Ministry of Education containing its 10-year “strategic vision plan” and a five-year “rolling implementation plan” which would include the plans for academics, faculty recruitment, student admissions, research, infrastructure development, finance and administration, etc.

A proposed off-campus centre is expected to achieve a teacher-student ratio of 1:20 initially, and 1:10 by the end of five years.

“The faculty for this purpose shall include the regular faculty, adjunct faculty, overseas faculty, visiting faculty, contractual faculty, industry faculty and tenure track faculty or faculty as otherwise permitted by the Statutory Council concerned,” the regulation reads.

It adds that at least 60 per cent of the appointed faculty members should be on permanent basis. The institute should also have enrolled a minimum of 500 students on its rolls under regular classroom mode with one third PG/research students.

The campus should have a “built up area of not less than thirty square metres per student which shall include academic (academic buildings, library, lecture hall, laboratories. etc.), administrative (hostels, faculty residences, health care), common and recreational facilities”.

According to the rules, the institutes will have to ensure that the norms and standards followed at the off-campus centres are the same as that maintained in the main campus. The regulations also add that the off-campus centres shall follow the similar admission criteria, curriculum, examination system and evaluation.

The IoEs shall be permitted to start an off-campus centre in an interim campus, subject to the condition that the permanent campus shall be ready within a reasonable time period not exceeding five years.

Rules also provide for the IoEs to ensure that the off-campus centres evolve into a multi-disciplinary research and teaching campuses with a minimum of 300 teachers and 3,000 students.

The IoEs shall be allowed to start a new offshore campus with prior approval of the Ministry of Education, and a no objection certificate from the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs.