Paramarsh Scheme | 19 Jul 2019

The Union Minister for Human Resource Development launched the University Grants Commission (UGC) scheme ‘Paramarsh’.

  • Objective: To mentor National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC) accreditation aspirant institutions for promoting quality assurance in higher education.
  • Implementation:
    • The scheme will be operationalized through a “Hub & Spoke” model wherein the Mentor Institution, called the “Hub” is centralized and will have the responsibility of guiding the Mentee institution through the secondary branches the “Spoke” i.e. through the services provided to the mentee for self improvement.
    • This will allow a centralized control over operational efficiency, resource utilization to attain overall development of the mentee institution.
  • Target: The scheme will target 1000 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) for mentoring with a specific focus on quality as enumerated in the UGC “Quality Mandate”.
  • Expected Benefits:
    • It will lead to enhancement of overall quality of the mentee institutions and enhance its profile as a result of improved quality of research, teaching and learning methodologies.
    • It will help the mentee institution in getting NAAC accreditation.
    • It will also facilitate the sharing of knowledge, information and opportunities for research collaboration and faculty development in Mentee Institutions.
    • It will help in providing quality education to the 3.6 crore students who are enrolling to Indian Higher Education system at present.

National Accreditation and Assessment Council

  • It was established in the year 1994 as an autonomous institution of the UGC with its Headquarter in Bengaluru.
  • The mandate of NAAC is to make quality assurance an integral part of the functioning of HEIs.
  • It makes arrangement for periodic assessment and accreditation of institutions of higher education or units thereof, or specific academic programmes or projects.

University Grants Commission

  • The University Grants Commission (UGC) came into existence in 1953 and became a statutory organization of the Government of India by an Act of Parliament in 1956, for the coordination, determination and maintenance of standards of teaching, examination and research in university education.
  • The head office of the UGC is located in New Delhi.