The government of Jammu and Kashmir has asked all colleges in the union territory to be evaluated and accredited by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) as soon as possible, officials said Friday.
The instruction was given by the chief secretary of higher education, Rohit Kansal, during a meeting with the directors of colleges in the Jammu division here, they said.
“The focus of higher education should be on the quality of learning and teaching. To that end, all colleges would have themselves evaluated and accredited by the NAAC as soon as possible,” said a senior officer.
Kansal ordered an audit across all colleges to determine the quality of academic input, and the need for review of courses or options and syllabus modernization, he added.
With the introduction of the New Education Policy (NEP), 2020, the focus has shifted to quality education, flexibility in the curriculum and globalization of prospects, the official said.
In his message to the directors, Kansal emphasized that while good infrastructure is important for any institution, the true purpose of a higher education institution is to provide humanistic, modern and quality education.
Kansal asked the principals to introduce mainstream systems of student feedback, adding that this would be an important part of educator evaluation.
The chief secretary instructed the clients to deploy technology tools such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Learning Management Systems (LMS).
He also said that colleges would be given more flexibility and autonomy, but they too should strive hard for quality standards and learning outcomes.
Kansal assured that the conditions for using local funds would be made more flexible.
Speaking at the meeting, Kansal briefed on the implementation of the new education policy from the 2022-23 academic session, saying: “Colleges would now be encouraged to exchange knowledge and expertise worldwide. Innovation and incubation would be promoted in a hub-and-spoke model, and expert help and guidance would be provided by universities and other leading institutions such as the IIT-Jammu and the IIM-Jammu.
Startup competitions and research will receive special attention under NEP-2020, he added.
