Aiding ‘quality Assurance’ to higher education, HRD comes with ‘Paramarsh’ for strengthening performance of institutions
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New Delhi, Jul. 19: Indian Institutions of higher education are furthering with quality and performance, but unfortunately due to some administrative and quality issues, NAAC rankings get hampered. Making this reality and promoting quality assurance in Higher Education, Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal launched the University Grants Commission (UGC) scheme of ‘Paramarsh’.
Higher education institutions that have failed to meet the quality standards of the National Assessment Accreditation Council (NAAC) can now get mentorship from the top universities and colleges.
Under this scheme ‘Parmarsh’ initially, 71 universities and 391 colleges with NAAC score of 3.26 and above will mentor five colleges each.
On this announcement, expressing satisfaction, Union Minister Pokhriyal said, “The first step of the mission that we had started to improve the quality and standards of education has been initiated by the UGC with the launch of Paramarsh and Deeksharambh schemes”.
Terming Paramarsh as an important scheme, Pokhhriyal said the ministry's thrust was on improving the global ranking of the Indian higher education institutions.
As per the official statement, This scheme will be a paradigm shift in the concept of mentoring of an institution by another well-performing institution to upgrade their academic performance and enable them to get accredited by focusing in the area of curricular aspects, teaching-learning, and evaluation, research, innovation, institutional values and practices, etc.
It also stated, Once the proposals are accepted by the UGC, the institutes can start the mentoring program within a month.
What are the benefits of ‘Paramarsh’-
*Under the Paramarsh scheme, the lending institutions will provide regular mentoring to help colleges achieve high-quality standards.
*The scheme also proposes to provide financial assistance to the mentoring institutions and the option of appointing an expert, who can be paid a fellowship amount of Rs 31,000 per month.
Under this scheme, UGC leads some criteria for mentor and mentee. UGC’s eligibility criteria are following-
- The eligibility guidelines laid down by UGC say the mentor and mentee can be government, aided, private or self-financing institution. "The mentor institution should be NAAC accredited with an A grade, having an overall score of 3.26 and above.
- Any such institution recognized under 2(f) & 12B of the UGC Act 1956 will be eligible to receive UGC grants for the purpose. Since these grants will be used for mentoring the institution and not for the creation of any infrastructure, the private institution can also receive funding as they do for student teacher-centric schemes.
- The scheme will lead to enhancement of the mentee institutions' quality and its profile as a result of improved quality of research, teaching and learning methodologies
- The mentee institution will also have increased exposure and speedier adaptation to best practices.
- The Paramarsh scheme will also facilitate the sharing of knowledge, information, and opportunities for research collaboration and faculty development in mentee institutions. As part of the scheme, the mentor institutions can secure financial assistance up to Rs. 30 lakh from UGC and can also hire experts.
The NAAC is an autonomous body that assesses and accredits higher education institutions (HEIs) in India. It assesses the higher learning institutes on the basis of seven parameters. The parametres include teaching-learning and evaluation, infrastructure and learning resources, research, innovation and extension, curricular aspects, governance, leadership and management, student support and progression and institutional values and best practices.
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