The government will set up three separate commissions - a Higher Education Reforms Commission to suggest timely reforms and chalk out future plans in the sector, a University Law Reforms Commission to assist the government in amending the outdated varsity laws and an Exam Reforms Commission to come up with suggestions on reforming the present exam system in the country.

This was announced by Higher Education Minister R Bindu in the Assembly on Tuesday. She was replying to the discussion on demands for grants in the revised budget. The minister said preliminary work on setting up the three commissions has started.

The government had proposed development of 30 inter-university centres as centres of excellence. Bindu said seven inter-university centres, located in five universities are being considered in the first phase of the project.

The selected centres are: Inter University Centre for IPR Studies, International Commercial and Environmental Law and the Inter University Centre for Space Sciences (both in Cusat); Institute of Multi-disciplinary Programme in Social Sciences and the Institute of Intensive Research in Basic Sciences (both in MG University); Inter University Centre for Renewable Energy (Kerala University) and Centre For Malabar Studies (Calicut University).  The minister said the government was planning to introduce a unified admission system for all state universities. Students would need to submit a single application for all the universities and admission will be given on the basis of eligibility.