The Ministry of Education is celebrating “Shikshak Parv” during 08 to 25 September, 2020 by conducting various National Webinars on the newly announced National Education Policy 2020. As part of this initiative, a National Webinar on ‘Regulatory Reforms in Higher Education’ was organized on 21^st September, 2020 wherein Prof. R.P. Tiwari, Member UGC & Vice-Chancellor, Central University of Punjab, Prof. K.K. Aggarwal, Chairperson, National Board of Accreditation, Prof. Nitin R. Karmalkar, Vice-Chancellor, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Prof. V.K. Jain, Vice-Chancellor, Tezpur University were invited as Speakers and Dr. (Mrs.) Pankaj Mittal, Secretary General, Association of Indian Universities was invited as Speaker and Moderator in the Webinar.

Dr. (Mrs.) Pankaj Mittal, started the Webinar by speaking about the Shikshak Parv and highlighting the importance of this Webinar on Regulatory Reports in Higher Education envisioned in the NEP 2020. She also mentioned that the regulatory reforms proposed in the NEP shall set the pace for much needed reforms in teaching & learning. The establishment of Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) with four verticals namely;  (i) National Higher Education Regulatory Council (NHERC) for Academic Governance & Regulations. (ii) General Education Council (GEC) for standard setting, (iii) Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC) for funding, and (iv) National Accreditation Council (NAC) for accreditation, will lead to a transparent regulatory mechanism.

Prof. V.K. Jain talked about Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC) highlighting the role of HEGC, proposed functioning of HEGC, Institutional Development Programme for supporting holistic development of the students, measures to ensure equity and inclusion in higher education, institutional social responsibility and the way forward. While speaking about institutional social responsibility he emphasized on village adoption under Unnat Bharat Abhiyan, participation in Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Fit India Movement, Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat and Disaster Management education.

Prof. K.K. Aggarwal spoke about the National Accreditation Council (NAC) highlighting the present mechanism of accreditation and assessment in India and the role of the proposed NAC, need for quality accreditation and its parameters, and scaling up of the present mechanism of accreditation for ensuring complete and mandatory accreditation of all higher education institutions in India. He also mentioned about the focus on hand holding the institutions to make them confident to apply for accreditation by way of organizing awareness workshops/courses and Mentorship.

Prof. R.P. Tiwari threw light on the General Education Council (GEC). He spoke about the creation of GEC and its functions to achieve the mandate of standard settings for higher education institutions. He also mentioned that the GEC will formulate the graduate attributes with the pedagogical pathways and tools to measure the acquisition of graduate attributes by the students. He also emphasized on integration of skills with the higher education to ensure global mobility of workforce for which the traditional skills imparting centres in the rural India have to be institutionalized.

Prof. Nitin R. Karmalkar highlighted the issues regarding National Higher Education Regulatory Council (NHERC) emphasizing on the academic governance and regulations. He mentioned about the creation of NHERC and described the functions of NHERC including framing of policy regulatory mechanism for HEIs.

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MC/AKJ/AK