"IoE status gives us freedom to be creative and innovative, redesign curriculum"

Dr H. Vinod Bhat, Vice Chancellor, Manipal Academy of Higher Education speaks to Careers360 about the University’s expansion plans after it has been conferred with the status of ‘Institution of Eminence’ by the Ministry of HRD…

Q. Congratulations on Manipal University's achievement of being conferred the status of Institute of Eminence. How do you look at this major achievement?

A. First of all, thank you very much. This is to me an acknowledgement of all that MAHE has done for the last few years and for me this is only the beginning of a journey. This is only a permission of autonomy for bringing in innovation in teaching, learning and collaborative research. The real thing is what we do out of this autonomy and that will perhaps be known in the next few months.
These are exciting times for us because we are still trying to digest the implication of Institute of Eminence. Not that we don’t know what it means, we do know, but it takes some time for it to sink in, but all I can assure is that in the next few months, you will hear a lot of MAHE, you will see some wonderful work coming out of the University and this will be just the beginning of things to come.

Q. How will the new status affect the University's academic autonomy?

A. Well, it gives us the permission to be creative with the curriculum, to redesign the things that we have already been doing. We now go out of the clutches of the UGC and AICTE but not the other regulators, we still have others like the Medical Council of India, Dental Council of India and others, they still will continue to regulate. That’s okay, but over a period of time that will also fall in line, but beginning with the AICTE and UGC, what it does is, it gives us the freedom to start new departments, new courses, new institutions, and also new campuses, and a lot of changes in the curriculum that we offer at the university.

Q. Will this impact the University's scope to innovate and experiment with the pedagogy? And, how?

A. Yes, because we have been experimenting with bringing in some online content, irrespective of the fact that UGC has said that 20 percent of your credit can be through online, through SWAYAM and others. We have found Coursera as a very good partner and we have offered a whole lot of open electives and also some core electives that can be earned thorough Coursera’s MOOCS courses. So, we are experimenting with that, we have had some level of success and in the next months, hope to see some fruits, but by and large what it does is, we don’t have to follow the narrow path which has been prescribed by somebody, we are now free to explore other avenues for improving pedagogy.

Q. Will it help to enhance the University's reach, as there will be no restriction on the number of campuses inside the country, or outside?

A. Yes, after Institute of Eminence status there is no restriction on the numbers, but still we will be going slow. We still are working on two or three campuses in the next two years, we are ready to look at a campus in Jamshedpur, one campus in Bangalore and one in Sri Lanka. We have already submitted our proposal for a new medical school in Jamshedpur. So, all this will become easier now with the Institute of Eminence status.

Q. Finally, from the students' perspective, what all can they look forward to?

A. This means certain things for the students, one they get benefit of all the innovations that we do, in teaching-learning. It will also open up the possibilities of the partnerships with other universities, which will accept my students for elective courses, maybe for a semester abroad. It will also bring in a whole host of international students, doing their electives in India through Manipal. So, plenty of opportunities, and as I said, its only unfolding and the next few months will give us a very good picture.