Higher education seekers are preferring UP, claims minister

Lucknow, June 17 (UNI) Claiming that exodus of students from the state to other places for job oriented courses has stopped to some extent, Uttar Pradesh higher education minister Rakesh Dhar Tripathi today said the government has decided to set universities on Public Private Partnership (PPP) to expand the need of higher education system in the state.

''Exodus of students from UP to other states of southern parts of the country and Delhi has stopped to some extent following opening of several renowned job oriented institutes in the western parts of the state'', Mr Tripathi said.

Talking to mediapersons after inaugurating a centre of the Institute of Computer and Finance executives (ICFe) here, Mr Tripathi said the state had saved around Rs 900 crore in the past financial years when only 15 to 18 per cent of the students went to other states for studies. Earlier, the percentage was over 60 per cent, he added.

The minister said the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government in the state was very liberal in according approval to private universities and even motting proposal to set up educational institues on the PPP formula.

''Against the 8 applications received for setting up private universities in the state, the government has issued No Objection Certificate (NOC) to two proposals and Letter of Intent to four others'', he said, adding that under the PPP proposal government will provide the land to the institutes and will run it on 50:50 partnership.

The eight proposals received to set up private universities include Gurunanak Insitute for medical and dental, Monard University, Mangalayatan University (Aligarh), GLA University (Mathura), Thirankar University (Moradabad) and Sunbean University (Varanasi).

The minister said there would be no need for raising number of seats under the Graduation courses in the state as this time the number of pass students are less.

Taking strong note on the ragging, Mr Tripathi said the management of the institute would be equally responsible as will be the students indulging in the illegal act. He also reiterated that his government was committed to hold the students union election as per the guidelines announced.'' Let the admissions be completed first, then only the government will announce the dates of the polls'', he said.

Mr Tripathi said the government has fixed June 30 as the last date for all universities to announce the results of all examinations which will enable the government to regularise the academic session.

Meanwhile, the ICFe today started its new centre in the state capital with a focus on semi-urban and rural area.

Imparting quality education to provide job oriented courses, company's managing director Santosh Mangal said IIM (Lucknow) would design all the courses for his institute while all technical support will be provided by HCL.

Mr Mangal said by next three years the institute will set up centres in all the tehsil headquarters in UP by opening more than 100 centres.

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