After receiving flak from various quarters, the Higher Education Department has planned to rope in lecturers for Bengaluru Ambedkar School of Economics (BASE) from other countries. The appointment of the Vice-Chancellor will also be done at the international level.
Higher Education Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan said that they have decided to invite applications from eligible candidates from different universities. He said that they wanted to develop BASE as a leading economics institute.
BASE was established in 2016 and was touted to be on the lines of the London School of Economics. The university started functioning from the 2017-18 academic year and now has 148 students pursuing B.Sc. Honours in Economics and a five-year integrated M.Sc. programme. The institute, which recently got the status of a unitary university, has seven faculty members on full-time basis, besides a chief executive officer and a director. The authorities at BASE will soon advertise for 11 teaching posts that will be filled before the commencement of the 2020-21 academic year.
A committee has been constituted to ensure that the post of the Vice-Chancellor is advertised at the international level. “We will also ask renowned economists in the world to spread to word and help us make it a world class institute,” said an official of the department.
Currently, the institute is functioning out of the visual arts building on Bangalore University’s Jnana Bharati campus. The new building will come up on 43 acres on the same premises by April. Amidst much fanfare, the foundation stone for BASE was laid by the then President Pranab Mukherjee and students were told that they would study Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s view of economics and aspects such as economics of discrimination, caste, monetary economics, and federal finances.
