To reduce the cost of education per student, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) had introduced the new scheme from the 2009-10 academic year, namely the “Integrated Campus”. This new scheme allows institutions to optimally utilize their infrastructure. Under this scheme, a society or trust running different types of institutions under AICTE’s purview on contiguous land sites can share a joint campus with common amenities like a common library, canteen, computer centre, auditorium or playground etc., which saves money on land and infrastructure investments. This scheme has reduces the land requirements by 20 per cent. It’s a mini deemed university without going through the procedures required for deemed university status. In integrated campuses only infrastructure would be shared, and not the academics. The facility can be availed by existing educational groups of institutes as well as new one.
Integrated Campus is a joint campus with many institutes / colleges like
- Engineering college with B.E. and M.E. / M.Tech. cources
- MBA / PGDM college with specialization in HR, Marketing, Finance, IT, Banking, Insurance, Hospital Management etc.
Pharmacy College with B.Pharm .
- Architecture college with B.Arch.
The Director is the head of the Integrated Campus; whereas each of this college is headed by Principal / Dean. Each institute is affiliated to respective university.
The scheme can produce multidisciplinary experts with ease like:
- Engineering Students: Almost 30% engineering graduates goes for management courses after graduation. Normally while doing B.E. the students do not have any idea about the management courses. Thus selecting appropriate course according to talent is difficult job. In integrated campus these B.E. students gets opportunity to interact with management students and can participate various activities of management courses. To take fullest advantage of the integrated campus the institute should arrange short term management programs for engineering students. This value addition has great advantage for engineering graduates.
- Management Students: The management students are from various discipline like B.Com., B.A., B.Sc. etc. These students do not have any idea of engineering stream. Almost every industry’s base is engineering. During M.B.A. in integrated campus they get opportunity to closely watch the engineering education system, the laboratories, seminars, and conferences etc. This skill set or exposer can help them in their career and helps to produce better managers for future.
- Pharmacy Students: Similarly if Pharmacy College is the part of the integrated campus then the management students get opportunity to closely watch pharmacy education system, the laboratories, seminars, conferences etc. This skill set or exposer can help them in their career and helps to produce better managers for future.
- Architecture Students: The architects and planners play crucial role for handling the huge civil engineering projects. They require management skills. Unfortunately it is not part of their curriculum. In integrated campus they get wide exposer of management techniques. On the other hand in integrated campuses the management graduates get opportunity to watch the curriculum, skill set development process, the course structure etc, which can help to build better teams for handling large civil engineering projects.
In engineering discipline there are many management based subjects. Normally the teachers of engineering background are teaching these courses. In integrated campus the management faculties can be involved and there expertise can be utilized to produce better engineers.
In isolated management institutes, for the specialized courses like M.B.A. (Information Technology), the teachers of management are involved. With the help of computer engineers these courses can be handled in a better way. Software Engineering experts and Project Management engineers along with management experts can give justice to this discipline.
The role of Training & Placement (T&P) Officer in Integrated Campus is more challenging than isolated campus.
He has to cater the needs of student of various disciplines. To achieve this goal, the T&P officer needs to develop
more contacts with industry as well as variety of reputed organizations, which results into very strong T&P
department. In addition to this, at Integrated Campus, the better campus recruitment in one institute helps other
institutes too.
He can start one day to seven days certificate programs on various topics related to management, engineering,and personality development effectively
The Integrated Campus scheme gives far better environment for higher learning than isolated institutes. The significant features of this system are:
- Produce better multidisciplinary professionals
- Facilitate better teaching faculties in certain interdisciplinary areas
- Cost effective approach
- Better administrative structure
- Optimizes the utilization of resources
- Better interdisciplinary research
- Helps to develop the collaborative habits
- Less expensive education system
- Higher students employability
This model facilitates all these features without sacrificing anything