Bhubaneswar: April 4: Eight Model Degree Colleges will be opened in Malkangiri, Nabarangpur,Rayagada, Boudh, Deogarh, Nuapada, Subarnapur and Nayagarh district of Odisha. Higher Education Minister Pradeep Panigrahy said that transit campuses would be ready to make these colleges functional from this year itself and students from these 8 educationally backward districts will take admission from the current session only. The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in these districts in lower than the state average which the government intends to improve to 30% by 2022.
The Higher Education Secretary GVV Sharma instructed the collectors of the eight districts to immediately identify temporary infrastructure for opening these colleges where as construction of permanent buildings for these colleges is at various stages of completion. These colleges are to come up under the central government’s Model Degree Colleges (MDC) Scheme, mooted during the UPA-1 rule for the country’s 374 districts with poor GER.
