SHILLONG: The North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) will host the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) East Zone Vice-Chancellors’ meet 2018-19 on Friday and Saturday under the theme Social Development and Sustainability.
Vice-chancellors of around 60 universities in the east zone, including the northeastern states and part of Uttar Pradesh, will participate in the meet.
Addressing a press conference on Thursday, secretary general of the AIU Furqan Qamar said the topics of discussion — like Higher education and sustainable development goals, curriculum alignment in higher education to implement skill development and enhancing global and regional relevance — will be relevant to Meghalaya and the North East.
According to him, there should be increase public spending on higher education, which is currently at 3 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product and suggested it should at least be taken to 6 per cent of GDP.
Stating that quality and excellence are of prime importance in education, Qamar said there is a need to revisit the curriculum and teaching methods because “the world is undergoing rapid development and uncertainties due to the growing demand for digitization”.
When asked about India’s move towards digitisation, he said, “We have to keep pace with time and we need to focus on making the economy self-reliant.”
AIU is an apex body of higher education in India that organises the zonal and national vice-chancellors’ meet every year wherein the matters relating to higher education with specific reference to university system in the concerned region are taken up for discussions.
Meanwhile, NEHU vice-chancellor SK Srivastava said the AIU will also felicitate the best local entrepreneur of the month following in the footsteps of Meghalaya government.
