Mumbai: The Maharashtra state cabinet on Wednesday cleared the decks for the iconic Sir JJ School of Arts to become a de novo deemed-to-be university.
The process to convert the 166-year-old art college, the oldest in the country, along with its two adjoining institutes - Sir JJ School of Architecture and Sir JJ School of Applied Art - into a university has been in the works for the last several years. With the cabinet approval in place, the institute will now need a final nod from the University Grants Commission (UGC) to become the state's only government-run deemed-to-be university and one among the handful of institutes with the 'de novo' tag across the country.
The ‘de novo’ category is awarded to institutions devoted to innovations in teaching and research in unique and emerging areas of knowledge.
The proposal for form the Sir JJ Institute of Art, Architecture and Design was submitted by the Directorate of Art to the University Grants Commission (UGC) in March 2020, following which the UGC issued a letter of intent in October 2021, has asking the state to fulfil around nine conditions for the de-novo status. The foremost requirement was to bring the three institutes under a dedicated society, trust or section 8 (non-profit) company. The other conditions pertained to infrastructure, faculty and curriculum.
However, the then Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) instead sought to see if the three institutes could be combined to make a state-level art university. The decision was later scrapped last year by the new BJP-Shiv Sena government, which decided to revive the de nove plan. It had formed a task force, headed by Nipun Vinayak, State Project Director for Rashtriya Uchchatar Shikshan Abhiyan (RUSA), to comply with the UGC's norms, which submitted its report to the government.
While giving the go-ahead to the new university, the cabinet has also approved Rs 50.38 Cr to meet its various expenditures.
According to Vikas Rastogi, Principal Secretary, Higher and Technical Education Department, the state will now send the compliance report to the UGC for its approval. "We will soon form a section 8 company. A number of new staff posts were created at these institutes back in 2019. The existing infrastructure of the institutes is being upgraded, while construction of a new building on the premises has been approved," he said.
A UGC team has already done a physical inspection of the heritage campus of art institutes in the city. The officials expect the university to start functioning by the next academic year 2024-25.
The proposed university will have five new departments offering master's in various 'unique and emerging' disciplines alongside the existing courses at the three institutes. The faculty at the institutes also believe that the university status will allow them to offer an upgraded curriculum. They also said that there will be an improvement in the administration and facilities, which currently suffer from red-tapism in the state government.
"Over the years, the curriculum being taught to students has become outmoded. Once we become a university, we will be able to offer multi-disciplinary courses to students across the three institutes," said a teacher.
Santosh Kshirsagar, Dean, Sir JJ School of Applied Art, said, "This is a historic decision, which was pending for a long time. This will help in overhauling art education while enhancing the ability of teachers. The institute and its students will benefit from it."
