First meeting of higher education mission held

Funding pattern and quality of education in higher educational institutions were among the issues discussed at the first meeting of the national mission on higher education Wednesday. Human Resource Development Minister M.M. Pallam Raju presided over the meeting of the mission authority of Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA).

Planning Commission member Narendra Jadhav, Health Secretary K. Desiraju and higher education ministers of various states attended. Chairpersons of the University Grants Commission and the All India Committee for Technical Education were also present. The RUSA is a scheme of the central government which envisages strengthening of the higher education system.

The mission authority approved the RUSA guidelines, including programmatic norms of the various components of the scheme and the equalisation formula, based on which the funding support would be determined, an official release said. It also gave its approval to consider the applications of Goa, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Jharkhand and West Bengal to participate in the RUSA. The mission authority also discussed the logo for RUSA, which would be finalised soon and adopted.

IANS