A committee comprising education experts and vice-chancellors will be set up to suggest ways of improving the quality of education in the State universities and also make them relevant to social mandates.

Disclosing this to reporters here today, Higher Education Minister Dr G Parameshwara said the committee, which would be headed by himself, would also invite eminent personalities, who have worked in prestigious universities of India as well as other countries, to offer their suggestions.

The minister observed that there was a need for the universities to move closer to the society by responding to the problems. Citing an example, he said the universities could have predicted occurrence of drought. In such a case, it would have been possible for the government to make budgetary allocations and take precautionary measures in advance to face the crisis. Similarly the universitie could think of finding a scientific solution to the row over sharing of the Cauvery water.

Apart from this, the universities can also provide consultancy services on various technical matters as being done by the private agencies: Such a system is being followed in foreign universities, he pointed out. Above all, there was a need to make the University courses attractive to students in terms of job opportunities.The committee would look into all these issues, he added.

ACADEMIC AUDITING: The minister also noted that academic auditing of University courses would be made mandatory from this year. Under this programme, a review of the performance of each of the departments in the universities would be done by the vice-chancellors concerned. The auditing will also look into various issues like the number of research papers submitted by each of the department in a particular year, he said. The audit report would be placed before the academic council of the university.

READY FOR PROBE: Replying to queries on allegations levelled against vice-chancellor of Mysore university, the minister said the government was ready for any kind of probe if documents were made available to it substantiating the allegations.

In the absence of such documents, it was left to the senate to look into the issue.

Qualifying marks for engg will not be reduced.
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The Karnataka State government today made it clear that it would not reduce the minimum qualifying percentage of marks for the engineering courses though nearly 6,000 engineering seats have been left unfilled so far in various colleges during the present year.
Higher Education Minister Dr Parameshwara said though a large number of engineering seats have been lying vacant, the State will not think of slashing the minimum percentage of marks as there was a dire need to maintain the quality of technical education.