After received the Institute of Eminence(IoE) tag, Delhi University has been working towards greater ideas which include institutes covering subjects like climate change and public health, etc.
The University has submitted its detailed plan of these upgradations to the Union Human Resource Development Ministry (MHRD). According to this plan, DU will set up nine more institutes along with the existing ones promoting music, art, etc and will also provide accommodation facilities to make it a premium institute.
This plan took a long time to be finalized, formulated and released because of the fee-hike that will follow to bring this plan to reality. The nine schools that DU plans to open will be for public health, climate change and sustainability, governance and public policy, transnational affairs, skill enhancement incubation and entrepreneurship development, culture and heritage education, journalism and cloud computing, performing arts and global history. The aim is to take a step towards a wider interdisciplinary collaborative effort and to respond to the future needs of the society.
This plan also proposes to provide accommodation facilities to the students. Currently, DU has a facility for 3500 students, which is hardly 6% of the total strength, thus through this action plan DU steps forward to provide residential facilities to the students. The university is looking into the Public-Private-Partnership model as the accommodation would be managed by professionals according to modern standards. It will include shopping, recreational and dining spaces, the funds for which will be raised by 2025 through PPP.
But to bring these up-gradations, there will be an increase in the fees. For operational expenses, the student fee structure has to be revised in a practical aspect. The only reason why it took so long for this plan to come out was that Delhi University has feared the response on fee hike. Undoubtedly, the proposal is progressive but it is commercializing education making it unaffordable which is not the characteristic of Delhi University.
