Punjab Government has decided to set up Centre of Excellence in the State in collaboration with world renowned IT groups — IBM and CISCO.
“Both sides have in principle agreed to setup Centre of Excellence each on PPP mode with the State Government in the first phase,” said State Technical Education Minister Charanjit Singh Channi after presiding over meetings with representatives of both the companies.
Channi said both the groups submitted their proposals to work in a joint venture with the Punjab Government in the field of IT and Technical Education. Both the groups have been asked to submit a detailed project report so as to work out at modalities at the Chief Minister level to implement this project, he said.
The Technical Education Minister said these Centres would be established as model centres and furthermore, one Centre of Excellence each would be set up in Majha, Malwa, Doaba and Poadh zones of the State.
“It would be made mandatory for the other private technical educational institutes of the state to adopt this model after its successful implementation to provide quality technical education to the youth,” he added.
Channi said it had been decided in principle that the Government would provide basic building infrastructure to these groups who in turn would provide all other technical infrastructure and faculty services in these centers.
Representatives of both the groups said besides providing world class infrastructure facilities in these centers, the teaching faculty would also be from the world class institutes.
They said besides running courses of BTech, the other vocational courses of ITI’s would also be started in these centers.
The State Technical Education secretary, Kahan Singh Pannu, asked the groups to come up with student-friendly proposals which should be economically viable for students to afford taking admissions in these centers. He also asked them to keep a scope in the proposal for admission of students belonging to the weaker sections of the society.