mumbai the state government is contemplating to set up a ranking system for its universities to improve the quality of education the idea was floated at a meeting of the joint board of vicechancellors chief minister prithviraj chavan and governor k sankaranarayanan on tuesday when the vcs expressed their concern over the falling standard of education in the state at the meeting the vcs backed the states proposal to start a grading system under which universities can be assessed on five points including quality of teachers infrastructure facilities on the campus and academic performance of students the state has 20 major universities but none of them is currently graded on performance we are severely lacking in innovation and the quality of education in our universities is poor compared to international standards one way of improving is to grade them on the basis of certain parameters going into the future we dont want to churn out just students instead of a knowledgeable bunch of students said a senior official at the meeting it was decided that more universities will be set up to train candidates in skilled jobthat will help the industry meet manpower requirement and to promote sports besides the academic proposals the governor instructed all the vcs to implement the incorporation of voluntary organ donation pledges on students identity cards through their affiliated colleges from 201314 colleges have also been asked to start screening their students to prevent spread of thalassaemia the screening would be voluntary and not mandatory said public health minister suresh shetty