Bhubaneswar, July 5: The state government today focused on reform in higher education sector and discussed ways of improving the system with vice-chancellors of state universities.

Higher education minister Pradeep Kumar Panigrahi said the state would receive the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (Rusa) funds in three months.

“In the first year, the state will receive Rs 300 crore, while in the second year, we will get around Rs 500 crore,” he said. An initial amount of Rs 2.6 crore has been released as first instalment to set up the state council for higher education. “We should think of ways to reform the higher education sector,” he said.

“Efforts are being made to ensure that students from the state score better in various competitive exams. Emphasis will be laid on quality education, communication skills and personality development,” said Panigrahi.

Higher education secretary Gagan Kumar Dhal stressed on the need for colleges and universities to get accreditation and re-accreditation under the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (Naac) to receive the Rusa funds.

Dhal said: “We need regular principals in colleges, and for this, the ban on teachers recruitment has to be lifted. There have been three principals in BJB college in the past one year.” He said the self-financing courses being run in government colleges have been resulting in “unnecessary crowding and disturbances”.

The vice-chancellors discussed their “20-year perspective plan” and ways to utilise the funds to bolster the institutions. Utkal University vice-chancellor A.K. Das suggested that every state university should have a “mobile science education unit” that could move at the nearby villages to interact with rural students and educate them about the benefits in higher education.

He also stressed on open learning clusters, virtual classroom, cluster research and world-class libraries networking in all colleges.

Issues such as allotment-expenditure of universities, creation of “centre of excellence” in university departments, restructuring of syllabi, examination reforms (e-evaluation), Wi-fi campus, automation of libraries, e-learning, smart classroom and online personnel information management system were also discussed.