Schools of Planning and Architecture

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Schools of Planning and Architecture

योजना तथा वास्तुकला विद्यालय,
Other name	SPA or SPAs (plural)
Type	Public Institutes of National Importance
Established	1941; 83 years ago (1941) (later came under the SPA Act 2014)
Location	3 cities in India Delhi Bhopal Vijayawada
Language	English

The Schools of Planning and Architecture (SPAs) are centrally funded technical institutes located across India. They are a group of autonomous public institutes of higher education under Ministry of Education, Government of India. They were established with the objectives of providing quality Architecture and physical planning education. The SPAs primarily offer undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral and executive education programmes.

Each SPA is autonomous and exercises independent control over its day-to-day operations. However, the administration of all SPAs and the overall strategy of SPAs is overseen by the SPA council. The SPA Council is headed by India's Minister of Human Resource Development and consists of the chairpersons and directors of all SPAs and senior officials from the

.

Institutes

The SPAs lists three institutes located at Bhopal, New Delhi and Vijayawada.

SPAs and locations, sorted alphabetically

Name	Short name	Established	City/town	State	Website
SPA Delhi	SPA-D	1941 (1959‡)	New Delhi	Delhi	spa.ac.in
SPA Bhopal	SPA-B	2008	Bhopal	Madhya Pradesh	spabhopal.ac.in
SPA Vijayawada	SPA-V	2008	Vijayawada	Andhra Pradesh	spav.ac.in

‡ – year converted to SPA

History

The history of the SPA system dates back to 1946 when Sir

with affiliated secondary institutions.

The first School of Planning and Architecture was founded in 1941 as a Department of Architecture of Delhi College of Engineering now the

and integrated with the School of Town and Country Planning which was established in 1955 by the Government of India to provide facilities for rural, urban and regional planning. On integration, the school was renamed as School of Planning and Architecture in 1959. Recognizing its national and international eminence, the Government of India conferred the status of 'Deemed University' on the school in 1979. This entitled the SPA, New Delhi to broaden and deepen its academic horizons by introducing new academic programmes, and by promoting critical research activities.

On the request of

Organisational structure

The Minister of Education is the most powerful person in the organisational structure of SPAs, being the Chairman, General Council.^[2] Under the SPA Council is the Board of Governors of each SPA. Under the Board of Governors is the Director, who is the chief academic and executive officer of the SPA. Under the Director, in the organisational structure, comes the Heads of Departments, Registrar, President of the Students' Council, and Chairman of the Hall Management Committee. The Registrar is the chief administrative officer of the SPA and overviews the day-to-day operations. Below the Heads of Department (HOD) are the faculty members (Professors, Associate Professors, and Assistant Professors). The Wardens come under the Chairman of the Hall Management Committee.

Admission

The SPAs have a common admission process for undergraduate admissions. It was called

shall possess the following qualifications:- Master's Degree in Urban Planning or Regional Planning or Environmental Planning or Housing or Transport Planning or Landscape Architecture or Urban Design or Architectural Conservation or Building Engineering and Management or Industrial Design conducted by the School, or equivalent from any other recognized university or institution with a minimum of 55 percent aggregate marks; or Bachelor's degree in Planning or Architecture of the School or its equivalent from any other recognized university or institution with a minimum of 55 percent aggregate marks and five years experience in teaching, research or professional practice.

Relaxation in the aggregate marks specified above may be made in case of exceptionally qualified applicants.

Entrance examinations

Admission to undergraduate programs in all SPAs is tied to the Entrance Examination, popularly known as JEE-Main. Candidates who qualify admission via

. The examination was conducted in offline pen and paper mode till 2010. In 2011, as per the orders of the The number of attempts which a candidate can avail at the examination is limited to three in consecutive years.

Reservation policy

SPA has an

Scheduled Castes

of society since 1973.

As per the rules, all the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates must take the JEE with the rest of the students. Based on the results of AIEEE but using relaxed admissions criteria, SC and ST candidates are offered admission. There is no relaxation on the criteria for passing the exams or graduating a course. The candidates admitted through the reservation policy are also subjected to the same criteria as the general candidates for graduation.

Education

The

periodicals

.

School offers planning, architecture and design courses both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. While the Bachelor of Architecture course is one of the oldest in the country, highly successful Bachelor of Planning course was started in 1989. The school offers 10 postgraduate programmes and 2 undergraduate programmes along with the doctoral programmes run by all the departments of studies.

Recognition

SPAs have a special status as "Institutes of National Importance" under an act of Parliament,^[4] due to which the degrees provided by SPAs need not be recognized by the AICTE.^[5] The JEE and GATE are important factor behind the success of SPAs, as it enables the SPAs to accept only a select group of meritorious students. This combination of success factors has led to the concept of the SPA Brand. Other factors that have contributed to the success of SPAs are stringent faculty recruitment procedures and industry collaboration. The procedure for selection of faculty in SPAs is stricter as compared to other colleges offering similar degrees.

Educational rankings

Nationwide, SPAs ranked above any other architecture college.^[6] Worldwide,

It is now an established brand name for excellence in planning and architecture education. Within seventy five years of its existence, the School has established a reputation as the nation’s leading institution for imparting professional education in town and country planning, architecture and design.

Notable alumni

• Arundhati Roy, writer^[9]
• Baburam Bhattarai, 36th Prime Minister of Nepal^[10]
• Eugene Pandala, Indian architect known for building with environmental sustainability
• Gerard da Cunha, Indian architect of the famous Nrityagram
• Hisila Yami, former Minister of Physical Planning, Government of Nepal
• Raj Rewal, architect
• Revathi Kamath, pioneer of mud architecture in India

SPA Alumni is an autonomous body of the alumni of the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. It was registered in 1992 under the Societies Registration Act of 1860.

In popular culture

• The movie In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones (1989) directed by Arundhati Roy is based on the life of students of the college and was filmed at SPA.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• School of Planning and Architecture (India)

References