Bhubaneswar, Dec. 3: Six months after Ramadevi Women's University started functioning, chief minister Naveen Patnaik today inaugurated the institution and assured it all help so that it can stand out as a centre of excellence.
In the last six months, the varsity has started eight new postgraduate courses. It has also modernised its undergraduate education and adopted choice-based credit system following UGC guidelines.
The university has also made provisions for facilities, such as digital library, computer lab, e-learning centre, health centre and an ATM, on its Wi-Fi-enabled campus.
It plans to open more postgraduate courses from the next academic session keeping in mind employability of its students. It also wants to open a centre for art and cultural studies and a school of mathematical sciences.
"We need to first build more classrooms, laboratories and libraries as well as recruit teaching and non-teaching staff for postgraduate education and research," said Chitrangada Samanta Singhar, who was the principal of the erstwhile Ramadevi Women's College.
"We plan to provide an incubation centre for the future women entrepreneurs in collaboration with MSME department," said officer on special duty at the university Padmaja Mishra.
"The impact of women's education is greater than that of men. Development of society requires equal participation of women from every walk of socio-economic life. But women's participation in higher education is below the desired level," Naveen said in his inaugural speech.
He added that the state government had launched several initiatives for more enrolment of girls in higher education. "I hope the university will initiate studies on women's empowerment, women's rights and gender equality," he said.
Higher education minister Pradeep Panigrahi said that that efforts were on to strengthen the new university's manpower. "We have also asked Khurda collector to look for land to set up a second campus of the varsity," he said.
Earlier in the day, tension gripped the campus after a group of students alleged that police did not allow them to attend the inaugural event.
A police officer clarified that the girls, belonging to NSUI, were detained as a preventive measure.
