The University Grants Commission (UGC) has announced the launch of a new initiative called Student Ambassador for Academic Reforms in Transforming Higher Education in India, or SAARTHI, with the goal of enhancing students’ participation and creating awareness around various reforms being brought in the higher education system under the National Education Policy (NEP).
As part of this initiative, the UGC will request the Vice Chancellors, Directors, and Principals of HEIs to nominate three students from their institutions (enrolled in any course) to be considered as NEP SAARTHIs.
“The letters for the same will be sent out on May 19,” UGC Chairman, M Jagadesh Kumar told Moneycontrol.
The nominated students will be expected to have an outstanding personality, possess excellent communication skills, organisational capabilities for conducting outreach programmes, creativity, sense of responsibility along with being a team leader, he added.
The UGC is looking at as many as 300 such students.
As per a written note shared by the Chairman, each university may nominate up to three students to be considered as NEP SAARTHI, along with a brief write-up justifying the nominations. Based on the nominations, UGC will select 300 NEP SAARTHI among the nominees. Chosen students will have to go through an orientation process to carry out their roles effectively by the UGC in a hybrid mode.
While exact dates have not yet been identified, the Chairman said that rough timelines have been built. “The deadline for receiving nominations would be set for a date in June, the announcement of chosen students will be made a month later, soon after which the orientation process would begin,” he said.
Students who are chosen as NEP SAARTHIs will work as ambassadors to promote NEP by undertaking campaigns at university levels and using social media to disseminate information about the same. The students will also be charged with collecting feedback from students to improve the implementation process of measures rolled out under NEP.
For this, the students will be felicitated by UGC. “We will give them a certificate of recognition, mentions on UGC’s official social media handles, invitation to all relevant online events organised by the UGC and an opportunity to publish an article in UGC Newsletter,” the Chairman said.
The UGC has been taking several steps to revamp the Indian higher education under the new policy. It recently also redesigned its website to make it more user-friendly, informative and dynamic as part of its effort to support universities and colleges to improve higher education standards into world-class.