Central universities to adopt, develop villages

Varsities to appoint nodal officers to help improve their global rank

Central universities will adopt at least five villages in their vicinity to transform them into model villages.

The decision was taken at a two-day conference of vice-chancellors of the 40 Central varsities, which concluded at Rashtrapati Bhavan here on Thursday. It also comes a day after President Pranab Mukherjee made this recommendation, as visitor of the varsities. To implement the decision, all the Central varsities will set up community development cells which will identify the villages for adoption, a press release issued by the President’s office said.

The varsities will fill vacancies soon, according to a resolution passed at the conclusion of the conference.

“Selection of teaching staff must be completed within six months of appointment of visitor’s nominees,” the resolution said.

The meeting, presided over by the President, also resolved that the Human Resource Development Ministry must take “immediate action” to fill vacancies of vice chancellors of the Central varsities. 

It resolved to implement choice based credit system from the academic year 2015-16 and adopt a “blended” Massive Open Online Courses strategy to enable students benefit with quality educational content to be provided on the e-learning platform.

“All activities towards National Assesment and Accreditation Council accreditation must be completed within six months. Database of alumni must be established within three months,” the conference resolved.

With the President suggesting that the varsities improve their global presence, the universities also decided to appoint nodal offers within 30 days to coordinate with the agencies which come up with international ranking of institutions across the world.

The VCs adopted recommendations based on the agenda of the conference which seeks to create an eco-system for research and innovation, capacity development of faculty, alumni participation and use of technology and creation of international and national networks for quality education.