Mission:

 

To provide adequate opportunities for the professional and career development of teachers in higher education system within the framework of knowledge society and to inculcate values, motivation and the skills in their art of teaching.

To provide opportunity for the teachers of colleges and universities to update their knowledge in the subject, technology and acquire new methods of curricular transactions in each area of their chosen fields.

To enhance competencies, skills, abilities, knowledge, efficiency and motivation of teachers, administrators, senior functionaries, scholars and non-teaching staff of colleges and universities so that they can play an enabling role in the development of students, not only in terms of imparting knowledge and skills to them but also in their counseling, developing critical and innovative thinking, research, consultancy and extension work.

 

The Mandate:

 

In order to achieve the objectives laid down under the National Policy on Education (NPE, 1986) and its Programme of Action, an initiative was taken by University Grants Commission in the year 1986 and over a period of time, 66 Academic Staff Colleges (ASCs) were established in different universities. During the last two decades or more, the system of ASCs has come to be accepted well and established in the university system with plan to plan financial support of the UGC and cooperation extended by the universities in providing basic infrastructure and other support, required for functioning of the ASCs. As of now, a total of 66 ASCs are functioning in the institutions of higher education across the country.

In the Eleventh Five Year Plan, one more dimension has been added viz., Training in Information Technology and e-content development. With this, the UGC has extended the scope of training to administrative staff in colleges and universities. The ASC draw resources from the parent University as well as academic resources from other institutions within and outside the state according to the needs. They have functional freedom within the broad framework of the UGC guidelines.

In line with the foregoing objectives and for achieving quality assured system for capacity building, continuous knowledge enhancement, new strategies of governance for promotion of innovations and creativity, new guidelines have been proposed by the UGC to transform the existing ASCs into two level systems in the form of a Scheme of setting up Human Resource Development Centre (HRDC) and Regional Centres for Capacity Building (RCCB) in selected universities in the country to create new such systems commensurate with the expansion of higher education institutions by the University Grants Commission (UGC) with following broad plan of action.

a) To organize specially designed Orientation Programmes (OPs) in pedagogy, educational psychology and philosophy, and socio-economic and political concerns for all new entrants at the level of Assistant Professor.

b) To organize advanced level and more discipline oriented Refresher Courses (RCs), for capacity enhancement and continuous knowledge up-gradation and exposure to emerging developments of faculty involved in teaching in institutions of higher education.

c) To ensure that every teacher in higher education system of our country is exposed to an OP and a RC at least once during the first three to five years; of his/her career.

d) To organize specially designed OPs/RCs to enable the faculty involved in teaching and research in institutions of higher education to utilize fast growing Information and Communication Technology support to teaching and research.

The following main target groups have been identified for capacity building, knowledge enhancement and similar other programmes with the objective of a holistic approach focused on transformation of our institutions of higher education to a more facilitating academic environment conducive to innovations, creativity and quality advanced learning and research.

i. Faculty members in institutions of higher learning engaged in teaching and research
ii. eacher Educators
iii. Key nonacademic functionaries in institutions of higher learning for better governance and to facilitate efficient use of various fast growing ICT resources and applications
iv. Research scholars



Vision

With the new education policy being drafted for the country, the challenges for higher educational institutions are getting compounded day in and day out. The institutions have to come up to the expectations of all the stakeholders-students, teachers & society. In such a scenario, the knowledge creation and its transfer requires a well thought out vision, a well documented action plan and a well managed administrative system. India, being a country with the highest young population needs to take advantage of this situation and develop adequate human resources not only for herself but also for the world economy. As a sequel to this, a target of 30% Gross Enrolment Ratio was fixed to be achieved by the end of the 12th five year plan and the thrust areas to be covered were identified as expansion, inclusiveness, quality, relevance and value based education.  This demands a fresh look towards whole higher education system of the country and orient it to accommodate these five areas. Consequent upon this, the mission and vision of higher education needs to be re-created, the objectives to be re-defined, the strategies to be re-formulated, and the system to be re-designed. With this changed milieu, the human resources manning the organizations engaged in higher education need a fresh mind set, a new set of skills, and an innovative approach to the creation, & transfer of knowledge in the society. Realising this fact, the 66 Human Resource Development Centers established by the UGC are supposed to act as change agents and bring transformation throughout the country.  The Human Resource Development Center, University of Kashmir UGC-HRDC)) is one of them.

          The Vision of UGC-HRDC envisages to contribute to the nation building by training Academic and Administrative human resources for the higher educational institutions of the country at par with international standards. In the next 5 years, the UGC-HRDC  aspires to become a state of the art world class institution craving for excellence in competencies, skills, abilities and motivation of both teaching and non-teaching staff of educational organizations.

          The Centre world like to assume the crucial role in developing critical and innovative thinking, Counseling, research, consultancy and extension work. The main focus of the centre shall be:

  1. Professional Development of teachers by organizing General Orientation & Subject specific and knowledge up gradation Refresher Courses.
  2. Special capacity building programmes for women and underprivileged staff.
  3. Sensitisation workshop on nation building in line with constitutional ethos.
  4. Awareness about Ecology, environment and climate change & the art of living among the youth.
  5. Building leadership qualities in youth and training them through value based education and composite culture.
  6. Information, Technology awareness and launching of short term courses on MOOC plate form to make our programmes available to those who are not able to attend our programmes physically.
  7. Development of E-Content and digitise the lectures of top notch resource persons which would be available to the students, scholars, teachers, staff and general public 24x7.
  8. Development of interactive website on various issues of education and societal needs.
  9. Methodology workshops for Research Scholars in the areas of Sciences, Social Sciences & Humanities to be organized, so that innovative ideas get birth and new approaches would be searched to nurture these ideas into research projects, patents and products.
  10.  Undertaking specific skill development programmes through which employability of the students and the research scholars will improve

Performance of UGC-HRDC, University of Kashmir till March, 2017