Name of the Scheme – Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA)
Department – Directorate of Higher Education
Scheme for : Institutions
Where to Apply : Directorate office
When to Apply : As in when the proposal are invited by the Ministry of Education.
Over the years, higher education in India has gone through a phase of unprecedented expansion, marked by a huge increase in the volume of students, an exponential increase in the number of institutions and a quantum jump in the level of public funding. The increase however has not been commensurate with the growth of the population and its diverse needs.
Today, the higher education system as a whole is faced with many challenges such as financing and management, access, equity, relevance and reorientation of policies and programmes for laying emphasis on values, ethics and quality of higher education together with the assessment of institutions and their accreditation. These issues are of vital importance for the country, since higher education is the most powerful tool to build a knowledge- based society for the future. The enormity of the challenge of providing equal opportunities for quality higher education to an ever-growing number of students is also a historic opportunity for correcting sectoral and social imbalances, reinvigorating institutions, crossing international benchmarks of excellence and extending the frontiers of knowledge. Recognizing this requirement, as well as the basic fact that institutions of higher learning have to perform multiple roles like creating new knowledge, acquiring new capabilities and producing an intelligent human resource pool, the Indian higher education system has to brace itself to address global challenges by channelizing teaching, research and extension activities, and maintaining the right balance between need and demand.
Higher education needs to be viewed as a long-term social investment for the promotion of economic growth, cultural development, social cohesion, equity and justice. In order to meet the XII Plan aim of inclusive growth and to ensure genuine endogenous and sustainable development along with social justice and equity, the higher education sector has to play a pivotal role, especially in generating research-based knowledge and developing a critical mass of skilled and educated personnel. Within this philosophical paradigm, some of the issues pertaining to the higher education system have been identified that need to be squarely addressed for the balanced development of higher education in India.
The National Policy on Higher Education (1986) translated the vision of the Radhakrishnan Commission and the Kothari Commission into an actionable policy by setting five main goals for higher education, as enumerated below:
- Access: Greater access requires an enhancement of the education institutional capacity of the higher education sector to provide opportunities to all those who deserve and desire higher education.
- Equity: Equity involves fair access of the poor and the socially disadvantaged groups to higher education.
- Quality and Excellence: involve provision of education in accordance with accepted standards so that students receive available knowledge of the highest standard that helps them to enhance their human resource capabilities.
- Relevance: involves promotion of education so as to develop human resources keeping pace with the changing economic, social and cultural development of the country; and
- Value Based Education: involves inculcating basic moral values among the youth.
Objectives
The XI as well as the XII Plan have laid emphasis on improving access, equity and excellence. The XII Plan mentions that access must be increased, preferably though consolidation of existing institutions and special importance is to be given to excellence or quality. Given its subjective nature and being a conspicuous weakness in the Indian higher education system, quality is a hard target to achieve. Quality must be pursued by each and every single higher education institution and not just by a few selected ones. The Plan also talks about incorporating lessons learnt from the past for designing better policies to improve access and equity.
The plan lays out the following as the objectives that must guide central, state and private institutions in the country-
1 Higher education in India to be brought in line with and at the frontiers of global trends in higher education and knowledge development;
2 Improvement in the overall quality of teaching-learning in an average higher education institution in the country;
3 Arresting and reversing the trend of group inequalities in access to quality higher education;
4 Creation of additional capacity for 10 million more students from eligible age cohort to have access to higher education in a demand-driven manner; and 5 Undertaking governance and regulatory reforms that focus on institutional
autonomy within a framework of accountability and build adaptive capacity of the system.
Strategic Shift
Access, Equity, and Excellence would continue to be the main thrust areas of the XII Plan with respect to higher education. However, considering the inter-linkages between them and taking into consideration the current realities of the higher education, these objectives need to be pursued differently. A strategic shift in thinking is needed in several critical areas ranging from issues of access and equity to teaching- learning process, research, governance, funding and monitoring. These shifts are explained below :
- Significantly Increase funds for higher education and use funds strategically. This investment has to come from both public and private sources and both from the central and state exchequer.
- Connect various funding streams to specific outcomes and desired impact. This would need reforms in governance arrangements at all levels (national, state and institutional), with suitable implementation frameworks and monitoring arrangements
- Foster institutional autonomy and link meaningful academic autonomy and managerial flexibility with effective monitoring and overall accountability through competitiveness.
- Targeted, integrated and effective equity related schemes, instead of the existing maze of multiple, diffused and low-value schemes, so as to give effect to the Constitutional ideal of Equality of Opportunity. Mechanisms for connecting national and state equity programs are needed.
- Institutional differentiation and distinctiveness should be encouraged. The spectrum of higher educational institutions must include multidisciplinary
research universities as well as short-cycle vocational education institutions.
- A renewed focus must be laid on research by integrating teaching and research.
- Shift from an input-centric and credential-focused approach to learner-centric approach.
- Consolidate rather than expand the number of institutions to ensure that the capacity expansion is done at lower capital costs and quality is maintained while expanding the system. New institutions can still be set up in areas uncovered so far.
- A move towards internationalization of higher education is imperative.
- Creation of alliances, networks, clusters, and consortia of academic institutions amongst themselves and with the research institutions and industry should be facilitated in order to create a self-governing system.
Components of RUSA
RUSA is envisaged as a prime vehicle for strategic funding of state institutions so as to ensure that issues of access, equity and quality are addressed in an equitable manner with the state as a composite unit of planning. The following are the primary components of RUSA that capture the key action and funding areas that must be pursued for the fulfillment of the targets:
- New Universities
- Up gradation of existing autonomous colleges to Universities
- Conversion of colleges to Cluster Universities
- Infrastructure grants to Universities
- New Model Colleges (General)
- Upgradation of existing degree colleges to model colleges
- New Colleges (Professional)
- Infrastructure grants to colleges
- Research, innovation and quality improvement
- Equity initiatives
- Faculty Recruitment Support
- Faculty improvements
- Research Universities
- Vocationalisation of Higher Education
- Leadership Development of Educational Administrators
- Institutional restructuring & reforms
- Capacity building & preparation, Data collection & planning
- Management Information System
The objectives of RUSA would be achieved through need based and customized equity interventions, quality improvement programs, and obtain mandatory accreditation. Faculty issues would be addressed through creation of new posts, filling of existing posts by full time faculty and faculty improvement programmes.
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