Need to devise courses offering quality education, says Vohra

Tribune News Service

Jammu, January 17

Governor NN Vohra, Chancellor of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University (SMVDU), chaired a special meeting of the executive council of the university in Delhi.

The Chancellor stressed the need for devising programmes and courses which offered quality education and unique value to students of the university and directed that the proposals for starting new departments should be considered after the academic audit committee furnished its recommendations. The university must create a special niche in academics and research and, as a first step, work towards securing admissions of higher merit students with diverse backgrounds.

The council also approved “in principle” a scholarship scheme to attract students with higher merit at the entry level for BTech, BArch and MBA programmes and incentivise consistent performance by students.

The executive council discussed in detail the “Perspective Plan” of the university for the period 2017-2022, which aims at making it a technical institution of national importance by enhancing the academic rigour, improving on standards of education and research, providing technical education in diverse fields, building visibility all over India and promoting productive collaborations with international institutions and universities. The measures proposed to achieve these objectives would include conduct of academic audit, which is already underway, enhanced utilisation of ICT, including use of Moodle or similar learning management systems; critical review of question papers by experts; upgrading of curriculum based on feedback from all stakeholders; internship for students and faculty in good industries; establishment of quality circles for improving the academic processes; and greater emphasis on industry interaction to make the academic processes more relevant.

The meeting was attended by Dr SS Bloeria, member, Shrine Board, Prof Goverdhan Mehta, National Research Processor, University of Hyderabad; Prof KL Chopra, former Director, IIT, Kharagpur; Dr DP Aggarwal, former Professor, IIT, Delhi, and former Chairman, UPSC; RP Agrawal, former Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development; Dr Sandeep Sancheti, president, Manipal University; Prof Khurshid Iqabal Andrabi, Vice Chancellor, University of Kashmir; Prof RD Sharma, Vice Chancellor, University of Jammu; PK Tripathi, Principal Secretary to Governor, and Ajeet K Sahu, Chief Executive Officer, SMVDSB.

The meeting was also attended by Prof V Verma, Dean, Faculty of Engineering; Prof VK Bhat, Dean, Faculty of Sciences; Dr Yugal Khajuria, in charge, Dean, Students; Dr Vandana Sharma, Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences; Dr Sumeet Gupta, Associate Dean (AA); and Ajay Khajuria, Registrar of the university.