Five-Year Action Plan to EQUIP India's Higher Education to Global Levels

A five-year master plan titled EQUIP (Education Quality
Upgradation and Inclusion Programme) has been prepared by an expert team of 10
focussed on various areas of higher education and submitted to Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal "Nishank", Union Minister for HRD.
The ten expert groups were drawn
from senior academicians, administrators and industrialists. They have
suggested more than 50 initiatives that would transform the higher education
sector completely. The Groups have set the following goals for higher education
sector:
-Double the Gross Enrolment Ratio
(GER) in higher education and resolve the geographically and socially skewed
access to higher education institutions in India
-Upgrade the quality of education to global standards
-Position at least 50 Indian institutions among the top-1000
global universities
-Introduce governance reforms in higher education for
well-administered campuses
-Accreditation of all institutions as an assurance of quality
-Promote Research &
Innovation ecosystems for positioning India in the Top-3 countries in the world
in matters of knowledge creation
-Double the employability of the students passing out of
higher education
-Harness education technology for expanding the reach and
improving pedagogy
-Promote India as a global study destination
-Achieve a quantum increase in investment in higher education
For each initiative, the Groups
have recommended modalities for implementation, investments and timelines. The
proposal would now be taken for inter-departmental consultations and appraisal
through the EFC mechanism before being taken to Cabinet for approval.
The ten groups and heads are:
1. Strategies for expanding access-Hasmukh Adhia, Chancellor,
Central University Gujarat
2.Towards Global Best Teaching/Learning process-Dr K
Kasturirangan, Chancellor, Central University of Rajasthan and former
Secretary,Dept of Space, former Chairman of ISRO.
3.Promoting Excellence-Pawan Goenka, Chairman, BoG, IIT Madras
4.Governance Reforms -Prof M S Ananth, Chairman,National
Testing Agency (NTA)
5.Assessment, Accreditation and Ranking Systems -Prof Surendra
Prasad, former Director, IIT Delhi
6.Promotion of Research and Innovation-Dr Vijaya Raghavan,
Principal Scientific Adviser to PM
7.Employability and Entrepreneurship-Ajit Balakrishnan, former
Chairman IIM Kolkatta
8.Using Technology for better reach-Prof Deepak Pathak,
Chairman, NIT Goa and Prof IIT Mumbai
9. Internationalisation-Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog
10.Financing Higher education-Kris Gopalakrishnan, former CEO
of Infosys.
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