85% state varsities in dire straits: NAAC chief

Tribune News Service

Jammu, September 26

Senior academicians and Vice Chancellors of various universities of North India attended the “Think Ist Convention” held at the University of Jammu on Wednesday.

The event was organised by The STRATFIRST India in collaboration with the Central University of Jammu and the University of Jammu on the theme of “Global Ranking in Higher Education: Issues and Challenges”. The experts gathered on a single platform to discuss the major challenges confronting the higher education sector in the country.

The focus of the convention was to outline strategies and improve the world ranking of the country’s institutions and develop the Indian Ranking Index that would become a benchmark in itself.

In his address, chief guest Prof VS Chauhan, chairman, National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), Bangalore, deliberated upon different issues faced by the higher education sector in the country.

He discussed at length why the Indian universities were not figuring among the top 100 universities of the world, which is primarily on the account of low gross enrolment ratio as compared to these institutions where the ratio is above 50 per cent.

Prof Chauhan also dwelt on the state of affairs of the local universities, saying “nearly 85 per cent of the state universities are facing financial crunch and these institutions are in dire straits”.

Stressing on introspection among teaching faculty, the NAAC chairman said it was the individual responsibility of everyone to ensure that a university performs well.

He said, “We have a long way to achieve better world rankings, still we have to celebrate the success the Indian higher education has achieved since Independence.”

Participating in the discussion, Padma Shri Prof Amitabh Mattoo, former Vice Chancellor, University of Jammu, presented the Vision-2030 document that provides a roadmap to get 50 Indian institutions to rank among the Global-500 list. He said the meet would be followed by the handholding of select institutions to enable them to earn a place in the global ranking system.

Prof Mehraj-ud-din, Vice Chancellor, Central University of Kashmir, emphasised on digital learning, while Prof Manoj Dhar, Vice Chancellor, University of Jammu, discussed about flipped learning.

Prof Talat Ahmed, Vice Chancellor, University of Kashmir, briefed the participants about the role of leadership in transforming higher education landscape in India. He also discussed about resource mobilisation challenges, which are seriously impeding the growth of the state higher educational institutions.

Earlier, Prof Ashok Aima, Vice Chancellor, Central University of Jammu, welcomed the gathering and briefed about the idea behind the daylong convention.