To devise ways to combat the challenges that public academic institutions may soon face, once the education sector opens up, the minds that matter are meeting at a workshop on Tuesday.

The one-day meet, organised by the Academic Staff College of Calcutta University (ASC-CU), will see participation from state government officials, higher education council members, university vice-chancellors past and present, university department heads, course coordinators and college principals from across the state.

The theme of the workshop is General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the challenges before higher education.

“According to agreements signed by India, 12 service sectors will have to be opened up by 2005, and education is one of them,” said Prof Binay Dutta, honorary secretary of ASC-CU.

“There will be several challenges before the public institutions, once that happens. Traditionally, we have not looked at improving the quality of education. Education companies from around the world, when given access to our markets, will certainly take advantage of that,” he warned.

Two areas to be closely looked at in the workshop are the need for designing courses according to market demands and resource generation for educational institutions. “The government is making it very clear that it’s time for institutions to become self-sufficient in terms of financial resources,” said Prof Dutta. “And the sooner they realise that and look at the possible avenues, the better for them.”

ASC-CU, formed in 1990 as per the Centre’s New Education Policy of 1986, and fully funded by the University Grants Commission (UGC), is one of the three staff colleges in the state — the other two under Jadavpur University and Burdwan University.

Located on the Rajabazar Science College campus, it organises around 30 orientation and refresher courses annually, seeking participation from the 370 colleges across the state. The courses have become more significant since the UGC made participation in some of the courses mandatory for promotion.

ASC-CU also plans to start a workshop in May on computer usage for non-teaching college staff. “We are planning to start a fortnight-long workshop to make the non-teaching staff aware of the changing trends in education and to help them improve efficiency,” said Prof Dutta. The first batch, comprising around 30 participants, will be limited to Calcutta University. Later, participation will be sought from other universities in the state.

The college has further plans of extending the computer facilities to teachers of the various colleges. “In a few months, we will open the computer lab to teachers who can use it in their spare time,” added Dutta. The facility will come free.