The first meeting of the Mission Authority of Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) was held on 8th January, 2014 in New Delhi. The meeting was presided over by the Human Resource Minister, Dr. M.M Pallam Raju. The meeting was attended by Dr. Narendra Jadhav, Member Planning Commission, Ministers of Higher Education in the States, Chairmen and Vice Chairmen of State Higher Education Councils and Principal Secretaries of Higher Education in the States. Shri Ashok Thakur, Secretary, Department of Higher Education, Dr. Keshav Desiraju, Secretary, Department of Health & Family Welfare and Vice Chairpersons of UGC and AICTE also attended.
The Mission Authority approved the RUSA Guidelines including programmatic norms of the various components of the Scheme and the equalization formula based on which the funding support would be determined.
The Mission Authority gave its approval to consider the applications of the States of Goa, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Jharkhand & West Bengal to participate in RUSA. These States had responded after the cut-off date of 31st October, 2013.
Since immediately after the approval of RUSA in October, 2013 some of the States went to polls, they were requested by the Centre to indicate their willingness to participate in RUSA. The Mission Authority gave its approval to consider the applications of Mizoram and Chhattisgarh who had responded to the Centre’s request.
The Mission Authority also discussed the logo for RUSA, which would be finalized soon and adopted for the Scheme.
Apart from the above, Dr. A.N Rai, Director of National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) made a presentation on the ‘National Quality Renaissance Initiative’, which would be undertaken by NAAC as part of RUSA to cater to the requirements of institutions to undergo assessment and accreditation. The Initiative would also build and strengthen the capacity of NAAC to carry out the mandate of inculcating quality consciousness in institutions.
Prof. S. Parasuraman, Director Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) also made a presentation on Capacity Building and Leadership Development of educational administrators and academic leaders. He outlined the strategy programme design, content creation and delivery mechanisms to be adopted under RUSA for creating a pool of potential leaders.
The Mission Authority also examined the progress made so far under RUSA and expressed its pleasure on the pace of its implementation.
Source: Press Information Bureau
