UGC seeks suggestion and feedback on Institutional Development Plan

The University Grants Commission (UGC), which had recently released draft guidelines on Institutional Development Plan (IDP) for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the context of National Educational Policy (NEP), sought feedback from its stakeholders.

Accordingly, the final IDP will be prepared with the joint participation of board members, institutional leaders, faculty, students, academicians and staff.

The objectives of IDP include that internal governance of HEIs needs to be more autonomous, accountable, decentralised, and transparent besides strengthening the student support system in the institutions.

Apart from the feedback and the suggestions, HEIs will also develop their IDPs based on the framework prepared as per the NEP 2020 to assess the requirements such as faculty shortage, administrative staff, ICT, physical infrastructure for teaching-learning, continuous professional development, student support, and to address the ad-hoc teachers, tenure track faculty, promotion and facilitating lateral transfer from autonomous to teaching to research universities.

The UGC said that the institutions will be ready to face challenges in progressing towards multi-disciplinarity in its letter and spirit as per NEP 2020.

The framework will also provide an insight to HEIs as to how infrastructure facilities will be upgraded, student support systems like sports facilities will be augmented, academic deficiencies like laboratories will be addressed to bring them at par with the best institutions to attract the best talent in teaching and learning.

IDPs will not only be standalone plans but shall have multifaceted interfaces to look into the perspective of the institution holistically, the commission said.

The IDP will also ensure that all HEIs will be equipped with the basic infrastructure and facilities, including clean drinking water, clean working toilets, blackboards, offices, teaching supplies, libraries, labs, and pleasant classroom spaces and campuses. Every classroom will have access to latest educational technology that enables better learning experiences.