Principal Secretary Higher Education Department, Rohit Kansal, who was chairing a meeting of Principals of colleges of Jammu Division, on Thursday said that all colleges would get themselves evaluated and accredited by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) within the shortest possible time.
“An academic audit to determine the quality of academic input, need for course or options revision and modernization of syllabus must be introduced in all colleges,” he said.
He said that with the introduction of the New Education Policy NEP 2020, the focus had moved to quality education, flexibility in curriculum and globalization of outlook.
Principal Secretary said that while good infrastructure was important for any institution, the true aim of an institute of higher learning was to impart a humanistic, modern and high quality education.
He asked the Principals to introduce regular systems of pupil feedback and added that the feedback of the educators would form an important part of their evaluation.
The Principal Secretary instructed the principals to adopt technological tools like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Learning Management Systems (LMS).
He also said that colleges would be given greater flexibility and autonomy, they too would need to strive hard to achieve quality standards and learning outcomes. He also assured that conditions for utilisation of Local Funds would be made more flexible.
During the course of the meeting, the Principal Secretary informed all about the implementation of New Education Policy-2020 from academic session 2022-23 onwards.
He also informed about the new Bachelor in Vocational Skills (B. Voc) degree. Besides, colleges would now be encouraged to exchange knowledge and expertise globally.
Innovation and incubation would be fostered in a hub and spoke model and expert assistance and guidance would be provided by the universities and other premier institutes such as the IIT-Jammu, IIM-Jammu and others. Startup competitions and research would be given special attention under the NEP-2020, he added.
