30th Annual Report 2017-18

29 Prasenjit Sen, from Jawaharlal Nehru University, NewDelhi, on Opportunities and User Experiences at the IUAC, and (iii) Shankar I. Patil, from Savitribai Phule Pune University, on UGC-DAECSR:AUser's Perspective. Kewal K. Sharma addressed the participants and stressed that the educational scenario in India has been expanding in a big way, as regards both institutions of excellence such as IITs, IIMs, scientific institutions, etc. as well as Central and State universities. This meeting, he said, was therefore a very useful opportunity for stock taking. Sharma highlighted several examples of Government initiatives that are currently in place or still being discussed, with the aim of addressing the question: Do adequate facilities exist to nourish the quest of those who are already teaching and those who are potential students? These included ideas for increasing and easing access between universities and scientific laboratories, enabling digital/online education, implementing reforms that give more autonomy to top-ranked universities, incentivising talented students to pursue PhDs in India, facilitating teacher training through schemes such as the Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya Teachers Training Programme and increasing access to higher education across the country in general. There was a Panel Discussion led by JagdishArora, Virander S. Chauhan, Dinakar Kanjilal, Somak Raychaudhury, and Ajit K. Sinha.At the outset, Raychaudhurymentioned that the main and general discussion would be the way, in the future, how the IUCs and UGC could interact with the universities in their research and teaching enhancement. He invited comments from participants who have never used IUC facilities, as well as IUC users who have benefited from their interaction and could suggest what more the IUCs could do. The salient features (selected) that emerged from this discussion were: (a) In keeping with Yash Pal’s vision, the IUCs serve a very important role providing centralised facilities, which are not easily available to individual universities, but which the university community can visit and use. (b) All subjects are not covered in these IUCs, and it was suggested to have other such centres for other subjects. (c) Many were in favour of de-centralising such central facilities. In particular, a need was felt for branching out into regional centres, with not-so-large facilities as local training centres. (d) Considering the heavy teaching load on most teachers, ideas are needed on how to support a large number of research projects for under-graduate and post-graduate students. (e) There was emphasis on the colleges and universities in rural India, where good science has been done but where the human resources created have less opportunities.