The Pondicherry Engineering College (PEC) will be upgraded as a technology university with the proposed Bill passed by the Puducherry Assembly getting the Presidential nod recently.
“The President has given the assent last month. The administrative process to complete the process to establish the university is on. It will be completed in a few months," Development Commissioner A. Anbarasu told The Hindu.
As per the Puducherry Technological University Act, the Lt Governor of the Union Territory will be the Chancellor of the university and Secretary to the territorial government (Higher Education) will by virtue of his office be the Pro Chancellor.
The technology university will be an affiliating, teaching and research university and also facilitate and promote studies, research activities, technology incubation, product innovation and extension work in technology, management, architecture and science, according to a gazette notification.
“The Government will have to constitute a search committee for appointing a vice-chancellor and complete various other modalities,” an official said.
The development marks an inflection point in the PEC’s progress to increased autonomy since the Assembly passed the Puducherry Technological University Bill, 2019, in September last year.
“Reconstitution as a university will provide greater autonomy in curriculum redesign, tapping grants and in determining international academic collaborations,” said S. Kothandaraman, PEC Principal.
The PEC was set up in 1984 as an institution promoted and fully funded by the Government of Puducherry and was later affiliated to the Pondicherry Central University. Since then, it has been making incremental progress in achieving the four forms of autonomy — administrative, academic, financial and managerial, it is pointed out.
Currently, the PEC has an intake of 120 students in four branches with half the seats filled through CENTAC and the rest through the Joint Seat Allocation Authority set up by the Ministry of Human Resources Development for regulating seat allocation on all-India basis. A proposal to initiate three more courses in the circuit branches of engineering and double the intake is pending approval from the All India Council for Technical Education. The PEC had ranked 122 on an all-India basis in the engineering category in the NIRF ranking 2020.
According to the Principal, for over a decade the PEC had been empowered with funding under the TEQIP (Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme). “This is not only funding but above all empowerment of autonomy,” he said.
“In the prevailing education scenario, the aspiration of educational centres is shifting from playing a role of an affiliating institution to functioning as a standalone institution of excellence,” Mr. Kothandaraman said.
The transition from autonomy, QIP centre and now university status represents an ideal path of growth. “Possibly, PEC may be the only one institute of its kind to secure this unique status. Now, we have a greater responsibility to take the institution forward and higher”.
(With additional reporting by Rajesh B. Nair)