E-Paper
CoEP bestowed ‘Unitary Technological Public University’ status by state govt
The CoEP has undergone a dramatic and illustrious transformation from a typical state college to a nationally-recognised, vibrant, IIT-like institution
After trying for the past many years, the College of Engineering Pune (CoEP) has finally got ‘Unitary Technological Public University’ status from the Maharashtra government. While the official notification was issued on June 21, an announcement to this effect was made on Friday by state higher and technical education minister Uday Samant. Ever since the CoEP was granted autonomy in 2003-04, it has been trying to get the said status.
The official notification issued by the state higher and technical education department on June 21, 2022 states, “In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (2) of section 1 of the Maharashtra CoEP Technological University Act, 2022 (Mah. XXXV of 2022), the government of Maharashtra hereby appoints June 21, 2022 to be the date on which the said act shall come into force.”
The CoEP chartered in 1854, is the third oldest engineering college in Asia. In 2003-04, the CoEP was granted total autonomy (academic, administrative, managerial and financial) by the then state government along with appointment of late Dr F C Kohli as chairman of the board of governors of the institute in 2004. Since then, the institute has experienced a renaissance of sorts with the help of a time-bound action plan based on pragmatic philosophy disseminated by its elite board. The CoEP has undergone a dramatic and illustrious transformation from a typical state college to a nationally-recognised, vibrant, IIT-like institution. The demonstrable outcomes of such transformation are visible in terms of NIRF ranking, NBA accreditation, excellent students’ performance in placements, higher studies and entrepreneurship, remarkable translational research by faculty and students, and sustained industry engagements.
CoEP’s newly-appointed director, professor Mukul Sutaone, said, “We always feel that this granting of university status would have happened long ago but it has now taken place really very late. There are a lot of academic freedoms on the way under which we will introduce many new and innovative programmes. One such is the integrated M. Tech, a five year programme to which one admits the student in Class 12 so that he or she completes the B. Tech course in four years after which in one more year, he or she completes the M. Tech post-graduation degree.”
“Now we have got autonomous empowerment by getting university status and we can start our innovative programmes which are already in planning. We are basically experimenting a lot in academic programmes. The other plan we have is about the executive masters’ programme. This is specially for working people who want to upgrade their careers with additional degrees, for which we have the M. Tech and MBA executive programmes,” Sutaone said.
About the changes on the horizon, he said, “We are already in talks with some of the companies where, after signing a MoU with them, their employees can take admission to the M. Tech or MBA or Ph.D. programmes. Earlier we needed permission from the Savitribai Phule Pune University, AICTE and UGC for doing this. Now we are getting out of this permission process and as per the provisions of the new education policy (NEP), there are various policies related to multiple entry and exit and other policies will be effectively implemented at CoEP.”
It was in February 2022 that the committee submitted the draft to the government of Maharashtra for being conferred university status through enactment by state legislation. The draft was passed as a ‘bill’ in both legislative houses of the state on March 25, 2022, and the bill was later endorsed as an ‘act’ by the governor of the state on May 11, 2022.
