Stay in India & Study in India
Chairman UGC to head the committee for preparing guidelines and measures to ensure more and more students stay in India and study in India; Committee to submit report in a fortnight
Stay in India & Study in India
New Delhi: Union Minister for HRD Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ held a brainstorming session regarding “Stay in India and Study in India” with senior officials and heads of Autonomous/Technical Organisations concerned of MHRD on Friday.
MoS for HRD Sanjay Dhotre, Secretary, Higher Education, Amit Khare, Chairman, UGC, Prof DP Singh, Chairman, AICTE, Anil Sahasrabudhe, Joint Secretary (ICC), Neeta Prasad and Secretary General, AIU, and Pankaj Mittal attended the meeting.
Pokhriyal said that because of COVID-19 situation many students who wanted to pursue studies abroad have decided to stay back in India and pursue their studies within the country. He said that there are also rising number of Indian students returning to India with concern about completion of their studies. He emphasized that Ministry of HRD should make all efforts to look into the needs of both these categories of students. He said that the situation is presenting two critical issues of concern:
- Addressing the needs of students aspiring to goabroad
Initiatives needed to retain them by providing appropriate opportunities of education in premier institutions in India
- Addressing the concerns of students returning from abroad
Supporting these students to complete their programme
Stay in India & Study in India
These issues require a thorough understanding of their present and future educational requirements and career plans which need to be addressed appropriately with timely interventions. Each of the above situation presents different sets of prospects and challenges, he added.
The Minister also said that during the year 2019 around 7.5 lakh students travelled abroad to pursue their studies and because of this valuable foreign exchange moved out of India as well as many bright students moved abroad. “We should make all efforts to help bright students to pursue their education in India. Also, as per this government’s manifesto we have to increase seat capacity by 50% in all premier institutions by year 2024 and also Institutes of Eminence should be increased to 50 by 2024.
Stay in India & Study in India
The decisions taken in the meeting:
- Chairman UGC will head a committee to prepare guidelines and measures to ensure that more and more students stay here for study in India and come out with mechanism for increasing intake in well performing universities. Also mechanisms will be explored for starting Multi-disciplinary and innovative programs, twinning and joint degree programs, Cross Country designing of centers, facilitating online lectures by eminent faculty abroad, linkage between academia and industry, facilitate Joint degree ventures and lateral entry to Indian Higher Education Institutions.
- Chairman AICTE will oversee the issues related to Technical institutions.
- Separate sub Committees consisting of Directors of IIT, NIT, IIIT, CoA and Vice Chancellors of Central Universities will be created who will assist Chairman UGC and Chairman AICTE.
- Chairman NTA and Chairman CBSE may also be called for inputs looking at their experience in education sector.
- Joint Secretary (International Cooperation) will coordinate from MHRD side.
- The Committee will submit report in fortnight time.
