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Journalism of Courage
EVER since it was selected by an expert panel in 2018 for the coveted “Institution of Eminence (IOE)” status, Reliance-backed Jio Institute has been waiting to receive the formal recognition from the government. On Monday, Dr G Ravichandran, one of the institute’s most high-profile hires, resigned as Provost well before the end of his term.
Dr Ravichandran, who served as the Otis Booth Leadership Chair of the Division of Engineering and Applied Science at California Institute of Technology from 2015 to 2021, was appointed as Jio Institute’s founding Provost less than two years ago. He formally joined the institute in July 2022. His brief was to help realise the institute’s ambitious plans to rank among the world’s top universities. His resignation comes with the “Eminence” status in limbo and no clear path or plan for its future without the IOE tag.
When contacted by The Indian Express, Ravichandran said his departure was for “personal reasons,” and declined to comment on the current status of the Jio Institute’s IOE tag.
Despite several attempts, Palak Sheth, the project director at Jio Institute, was not available for comment.
Ravichandran’s appointment was announced by the Reliance Foundation on April 4, 2022 which said that he was tasked to help accelerate the Jio Institute’s mission of “preparing the next generation of global leaders, who can contribute to the advancement of India and the world.”
Reliance’s Jio Institute today is little more than an AICTE-affiliated campus — one of nearly 5,000 offering only certificate and diploma courses.
It offers certificate programmes in artificial intelligence and data science; digital media and marketing communications; and sports management. Although, in its first year of operation, in 2022-23, it admitted 120 students in two PG certificate programmes. In 2023-24, it admitted just about 60 students and had only four regular faculty members.
An investigation by The Indian Express last year had shown that at least four private institutions continue to wait for the formal recognition as IOEs despite being selected under the Centre’s ambitious scheme, backed by the Prime Minister’s Office, promising sweeping autonomy in administration and academics and help them upgrade to global standards.
Jio Institute, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), and Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham are the four private institutions whose readiness reports were approved by the Union Government’s empowered committee by July 2020.
At the heart of the delays affecting the IOE scheme is a defunct Empowered Expert Committee, which was first created to cut red tape and make UGC regulations more flexible for the 20 selected institutions.
However, the EEC has been inactive for the past two years because the last committee, led by former Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami, completed its three-year term on February 20, 2021. Since then, the Government has not appointed new members or extended the term of the Gopalaswami panel.
