NEW DELHI, 30 November 2023: K Sanjay Murthy, Secretary, Department of Higher Education, Govt. of India today said that India has around 50,000 large body of institutions with only 1000 accredited so far. However, the pace has increased, and we have now 6-7 state governments committed towards accrediting these institutions in a fixed time frame. This accreditation drive is pivotal to establishing a certain standard of quality, ensuring that industry leaders can confidently select candidates from these institutions, he added.
Murthy also spoke a strategic initiative to involve industry professionals in mentoring faculty members. “We are coming out with a strategy to see that we have industry professionals mentoring certain faculty on designing, thinking and entrepreneurship so that the entire start-up ecosystem, the design of manufacturing products also plays a role in pursuit of excellence that these sectors plan to achieve,” he added.
Speaking on the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020, Murthy added, “The NEP 2020 has liberated many academic institutions to look beyond what they were doing in the past and discover new avenues for providing better education to the students of our country.” Speaking on the new technology platforms rolled out by the government, he stated that ‘Samarth’ is being launched in many of the institutions and we will ensure that we cover at least 10,000 institutions in next 1.5 years.
Highlighting the mentioning of these technological platforms in the G20 Declaration, Murthy emphasized that Samarth, Swayam and Diksha (at school level) find a key mention as digital public infrastructure in the New Delhi Leaders Declaration. “We feel that these can be leveraged further for the benefit of the countries in the global south,” he stated.
Dr Vidya Yeravdekar, Chair, FICCI Higher Education Committee & Pro-chancellor, Symbiosis International University expressed optimism about the transformative era for students under the NEP 2020. “Students immersed in multidisciplinary learning are empowered with tremendous flexibility through the academic bank of credit, and this has contributed to creating significant educational possibilities both for our students and institutions,” she added.
