Facing flak, HRD Ministry says ’eminence’ tag for proposed Jio institute is conditional

The move to grant the yet-to-be-established Jio Institute as one of the six "IoE" elicited sharp criticism from various quarters with many questioning the process of selection and the motive behind it.

Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar. (File Photo)

A day after the government drew widespread backlash over its decision to grant the Reliance Foundation’s yet-to-be-established Jio Institute a status of an “Institution of Eminence”, the HRD Ministry on Tuesday issued a clarification that the awarded status was conditional and that it would get only a letter of intent for now.

“Right now they will not get the IoE tag, they will just get a letter of intent. If they are able to establish themselves in three years and meet the expectations of the expert committee, then they will get the IoE status. The expert panel will have the authority to withdraw the tag if the institution is not found to be performing up to the mark,” HRD Secretary R Subramaniam told reporters.

On Monday, the government awarded Institution of Eminence (IoE) status to three public and three private institutions — IIT-Delhi, IIT-Bombay, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), BITS-Pilani, Manipal Academy of High Education, and Reliance Foundation’s proposed Jio Institute near Navi Mumbai.

However, the move to grant the yet-to-be-established Jio Institute as one of the six “IoE” elicited sharp criticism from various quarters with many questioning the process of selection and the motive behind it.

Justifying Reliance Foundation’s selection, the HRD Ministry said it received 11 private proposals but its panel of experts felt that only the Jio Institute cleared all four specifications — land availability, highly qualified and experienced core team, funding, and strategic vision with “clear milestones and action plan”.

READ | Proposed Jio institute gets eminence status with IITs and IISc

“Jio Institute has been selected under the greenfield institutions category. These institutions are not there right now but where well-meaning responsible private investment wants to bring global standards to the country, they should be welcomed,” the HRD Secretary further said. He also said that the three government institutions selected as IoEs would get funding of Rs 1,000 crore each, and the private entities would not be entitled to funding.

In response to some misinformation campaign in social media regarding “Institutes of Eminence”, please find herewith clarifications on commonly raised questions #InstituteofEminence pic.twitter.com/K6IB5ILpfb

— Ministry of HRD (@HRDMinistry) July 9, 2018

A total of 114 institutions and universities – 74 from public sector and 40 from private sector – had applied for IoE status. The Empowered Expert Committee (EEC), which was entrusted to find 20 institutions out of 114 applicants, could only identify 11, of which six have been awarded the eminence tag, for now.

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The four-member EEC is headed by former Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami and has Renu Khator, president of the University of Houston, R Pritam Singh from the Management Development Institute and Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School, as its other members.

The IoEs are proposed to have greater autonomy compared to other higher education institutions. For instance, they will be free to decide their fee for domestic and foreign students and have a flexible course duration and structure.