The university will have Wi-Fi- enabled e-campus, ergonomically-designed classrooms, a highly qualified faculty, hostels, educational loan facility and distance education programme covering foreign countries at Tepesia in Guwahati.

Fr Stephen Mavely, Don Bosco University Project Coordinator said that providing quality education and making it accessible to the disadvantaged sections of the society are the twin objectives of the university.

He further said that a full-fledged campus at Tepesia on the outskirts of Guwahati will be ready in three or four years. For the time being, classes for MBA and IT courses will be held at the Don Bosco Institute (DBI), Kharghuli, and those for engineering courses will be held at Don Bosco College of Engineering and Technology at Azara.

He informed that a number of new courses will be available in the university, with thrust on professional subjects for ensuring employability of its products. “Our goal is to mould young persons into intellectually competent, morally upright, socially committed and spiritually inspired citizens,” he said.

He added that there would be no capitation fee. “We had also tied up with some banks for facilitating easy study loans to needy students,” he said.

Tata group has asked the Assam government to give 750 acres of land for the setting up of an ecologically compliant Education City in the state. Assam Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi said, “We are trying to arrange land for Tata’s. The group will soon commission a study for setting up of an Ecologically Compliant Education City which will be the first such educational institute in a series of other educational ventures such as liberal arts, liberal sciences, engineering, ecological studies, etc. Our Government will provide the Tata Institute of Social Sciences the required land,” he said.

For students of North East India, New Delhi happens to be the favourite destination when it comes to pursuing their academic aspirations. However when in comes to professional courses students prefer to study in Bangalore and Pune.

Northeastern students residing in three cities of the country, on an average spend around Rs 5 Crore annually. According to an estimate, on an average, nearly 10,000 students who move out every year, spend Rs 5,000 monthly on their stay in those cities.

Assam is lagging far behind the other states of the country in matters of technical education. According to the State Education Department, Assam requires raising its capacity by 17 times over the existing infrastructure in degree engineering level and five times over the existing capacity in the diploma engineering level to be at par with the other states of the country.

As per an estimate more than 6000 Northeasterners come to New Delhi to study academics every year. Out of which nearly 4000 are from Assam. More than 4000 students move to Bangalore to study medicine, engineering, law and other professional courses.

Jnanpith awardee and former professor of department of language in Delhi University, Mamoni Raisom Goswami said nearly 2000 students from the region move out every year to study in Pune. “Bangalore has really emerged as a destination of technical and professional education. In the next couple of years it will surpass the number of Northeastern students living in New Delhi,” she said.

She said that earlier the trend was to study in Guwahati or Shillong. Now the boom in professional courses and want for bigger exposure has seen a large number of students moving to the national capital and metropolitan cities like Bangalore and Pune. The greater job prospects and higher pays are also inviting a large number of students to these places, she added.

Assam government had requested the Union Human Resource Development ministry to establish an Indian Institute of science education and research in 2007. This is one of the components of Asom Accord signed between the government and student leaders.

Already the committee to study the problem of unemployment in Assam and to suggest an employment policy has suggested a complete overhaul of the education system as a closer look at the present system revealed high dropout rates in the primary and secondary levels.

The committee, headed by noted economist Dr Jayanta Madhab, in its report pointed out that of those who go beyond the secondary level, most end up studying Bachelor of Arts, a few study Science and even less opt for Commerce. The report pointed out that a negligible number of students opt for technical education and unless the education system is geared towards producing students who can be gainfully employed in the coming decades, not only in Assam, but also elsewhere, the system becomes irrelevant.

The report said that only five per cent of the workforce in the State are graduates and above and only eight percent of the population above 18 years have some technical education and only 10 percent of the population above 18 years have some skills, largely in carpentry. “With this manpower profile, any Government will find it hard to provide employment opportunities and it is imperative that skill formation must be given priority in any employment generation programme. Only then will the unemployment problem be reduced and the same can also attract the industries from outside or export technicians to other parts of India and elsewhere in the world,” the report said.