UKIERI recently embarked on an interesting joint venture with the University Grants Commission (UGC) and Leadership Foundation for Higher Education (LEFHE) through the India UK Higher Education Leadership Development Programme. The programme facilitates the exchange of senior staff between two partner institutions as a leadership development exercise for the individuals concerned and encourages these institutions to develop close ties in teaching and research.

Under this programme, the first cohort of 14 Vice Chancellor's and Pro VC's from UK and Indian HEIs participated in a 2 day workshop organised with the support of National University of Educational Planning & Administration (NUEPA) in Delhi on 21 & 22 March. The workshop began with a welcome address by Prof Ved Prakash, Vice Chancellor, NUEPA who set the theme of 2 days of the workshop & provided an overview on the pedagogy to be adopted for the workshop. Similar thoughts were shared by Mr Rod Pryde, Director British Council, India and Sri Lanka and Mr Amit Khare, Joint Secretary, MHRD who assured the support of both UK and Indian government to this programme.

Prof Sukhadeo Thorat, Chairman UGC chaired the inaugural session & emphasized on how a programme like India- UK Higher Education Leadership Development need to be supported in India and UK so that widening participation could be achieved in a targeted manner. He further advocated the need for education; which provides a meaningful way for the participation in the development process.

The workshop saw a series of engaging discussions on issues of key challenges being faced by the India and UK Higher Education systems with participants reflecting on the strengths of individual universities & how can we all work towards prioritizing the key challenges being faced & aim to overcome them. The participants also engaged in groups to discuss issues like Widening participation, Access and Inclusiveness, Governance, Finance and Internationalization of Higher Education and made some interesting observations which is available as a detailed report for download below.

The workshop was followed with a 3 day institutional visits to the twinned Indian partner institutes by the UK participants. The visits provided the UK participants an insight into the Indian education system and the framework in which the institutions work currently.

The follow up UK workshop is being planned in SOAS, London on 15 and 16 June for this cohort. It was decided that June workshop in UK will provide further avenues to Indian Vice Chancellors to look for opportunities ahead and also firm up ideas to collaborate on research and program between twinned universities.

“This program is a wonderful opportunity for both nations to learn from each other's experience and also to bring about qualitative improvement in higher education”
Prof. Ved Prakash
Vice Chancellor, National University of Educational Planning & Administration

  “It has been a real honour to be part of the senior management team from UK Universities who are privileged to be able to discuss and debate issues of mutual interest concerning higher education with Indian vice chancellors. It is important that our nations deepen our understanding of the challenges we collectively face in enhancing quality research and teaching, and that we learn from one another how to meet these challenges”
Dr Keith Hoggart
Vice-Principal (Arts & Sciences and External Relations), King's College, London

 

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