Bhubaneswar: India got its first tribal university when the federal Ministry of Human Resource Development granted university status to Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences.
The institute received the letter in this regard from the ministry on August 25.
KISS claimed it has become the first tribal university in India and in the entire world. Though Indira Gandhi National Tribal University in Amarkantak of Madhya Pradesh was established before, it enrolls students of all categories. On the other hand, the new university is exclusively for tribal students, reports news.webindia123.com.
The institute has been declared a Deemed University under De-Novo category. The university will introduce seven new innovative departments in the first phase to provide impetus to research on tribal studies and help the institute achieve a place of prominence in the tribal education and research in world, the institute said.
The university was founded by Achyuta Samanta.
In addition to formal education from grade one to masters level, a wide range of vocational skill is imparted to the students to 37,000 students of the institute free of cost.
The institute is dedicated to provide holistic quality education to 25,000 tribal children, to overcome poverty and injustice.
It started as a residential tribal school for 125 children in 1993. In six years it had 250 students.
In 2015, it received UN Grants Special consultative status. In the same year, its students made the longest Human Chain for world peace. It set double Guinness world records after making the “Largest Human Sentence.