TEQIP III to conclude on September 30, Education Ministry asks states to continue activities under project
The third phase of the Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP), initiated by the Ministry of Education, to improve the quality of engineering education will conclude on September 30, 2021.
The Ministry of Education has written to the Chief Secretaries of focus states requesting to plan for continuation of activities undertaken during TEQIP-III to maintain the quality of technical education. The information was given by Union Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.
The reply submitted in the Lok Sabha states it will be replaced by another programme, Multidisciplinary Education Research Improvement in Technical Education (MERITE).
“A token amount of Rs 10 crore has been given towards MERITE in the recent budget 2021-22 to start preparatory works,” the Education Ministry told the Lok Sabha.
“The Government of India has been making continuous efforts to ensure that the focus state governments prepare a sustainability plan for the Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP-III), so as to avoid any academic standstill beyond the project period, i.e September 30, 2021," the statement further said.The Ministry of Education has written to the Chief Secretaries of focus states requesting to plan for continuation of activities undertaken during TEQIP-III, for maintaining the quality of technical education.
In 2017, the Government of India signed a financing agreement with the World Bank to support the project designed for enhancing the quality of engineering education in existing institutions with a special consideration for low-income and special-category states.
For this project, the government established a National Project Implementation Unit (NPIU) in the form of a central project team to see the day-to-day progress. The unit had hired graduates from IITs, IISc, NITs, and other Central-funded universities for this purpose in 2018. However, their contract ended in March 2021. TEQIP III faculty had staged peaceful protests at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, requesting for their retention and regularisation.
