CHENNAI Dec. 11. The President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, will participate in the silver jubilee celebrations of the Anna University here and formally launch electronic connectivity between the institution and affiliated colleges on December 14.

The Vice-Chancellor, E. Balagurusamy, told mediapersons here today that the networking infrastructure would cater for the needs of voice and video communication for providing online courses and better e-governance. The colleges would be able to access the university resources and databases using the videoconferencing and virtual classroom facilities. Teachers of the affiliated colleges could enrol for Ph.D/research programmes, do course work, take examinations in their colleges themselves, and obtain degrees from the university.

During the inauguration, about half a dozen colleges, which had ISDN connectivity, would be electronically linked to demonstrate the concept. Later, within a year, all constituent and affiliated colleges would become part of the network. The AICTE and the University Grants Commission had promised seed money to the colleges for establishing the link.

The Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, would launch the `Telemedicine' facility, connecting the university with all colleges to provide medical facilities to students and teachers and nearby communities.

The Governor-Chancellor, P.S. Ramamohan Rao, would unveil a statue of Rm. Alagappa Chettiar, founder of the A.C. College of Technology, Chennai. Family members have donated the statue.

Occasion for new initiatives

The silver jubilee would be an occasion for the university to take up new initiatives for establishing a world-class centre for technology learning and research.

What started as a survey school in 1794, became a civil engineering school in 1858 (along with the present Roorke and Pune universities).

In 1861, it became the College of Engineering, Guindy. In 1978, during the M.G. Ramachandran regime, the Anna University was founded as a unitary institution combining the Guindy Engineering College, the A.C. College of Technology, the Madras Institute of Technology (Chromepet) and the School of Planning and Architecture as constituent units.

In its 25th year, it became an affiliated university.

Today, with over 240 colleges, 70,000 students, 30,000 faculty members and 40,000 non-teaching staff members, it was arguably the world's largest technical university, known internationally for its academic strengths. "We will use the 25th year to consolidate our strengths," the Vice-Chancellor said.

The university was drawing a blueprint for a world-class business school to offer MBA, with emphasis on technology management.

It would seek to establish more fruitful partnerships with industry to provide better mid-course training and placement facilities to students, establish a call centre to benefit students and staff, and introduce the "smart card" for the students.

The university wanted to amend its Act and regulations to enable establishment of centres outside Tamil Nadu.

For example, the Arunachal Pradesh Government wanted the university to provide at least certificate programmes in the northeastern States, which had no engineering college.