Past conclaves under its aegis

Regional Conclaves

Since 2007, CII has been organizing regional conclaves in different parts of the country with the aim of providing a conducive environment for both industry and universities to discuss their issues and concerns, raise awareness level about the need to interact on a proactive basis and promote creation of innovation centers to act as a bridge between universities and industry. So far 16 conclaves have been organized all over the country. In 2013, the conclaves were held at:

• South Zone: Central Leather Research Institute, Chennai
• West Zone: College of Engineering, Pune
• East Zone: Bengal Engineering and Science University, Kolkata
• North Zone: CII Chandigarh Office

Government-Industry Partnership for Setting up Theme-based Innovation Institutes

CII, in partnership with AICTE and the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), organized a national round-table in New Delhi on 24th-25th September 2012 to discuss an innovative model to stimulate industries’ participation in establishing and managing multi-disciplinary post-graduate-cum-research educational institutions in the country.

State Initiatives in Higher Education (Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan—RUSA)

CII, in partnership with the Planning Commission and World Bank has been working on creating a framework for evaluating the efforts of state governments in higher education. State universities account for nearly 90 per cent of recruitments in higher education but get only a miniscule portion of central funding. State budgets often fall short of meeting the requirements of expansion and improvements in the university system. It is to bring about a paradigm shift in the way central funding to states works--not through University Grants Commission but directly to the state governments--that CII is working with the Planning Commission on creating this framework of evaluation.

Two special sessions on this theme and subject were held during the 4th Global Higher Education Summit on 8th-9th November 2012 in New Delhi. On this occasion a first-of-its-kind ASHE report—Annual Status of Higher Education in States and Union Territories of India 2012 was jointly produced by CII and Planning Commission. The second edition of ASHE report 2013 was prepared in partnership with the Ministry of Human Resource Development and Mr R P Sisodia, Joint secretary, Human Resource Development, Government of India, provided inputs from the Government’s own RUSA document for the report.

The ‘ASHE 2014 – Annual Status of Higher Education of States and UTs in India 2014’ marks the third edition of the series. The 2014 edition of the ASHE report was released at the “India-US Technology Summit & Knowledgexpo 2014”. The report makes an attempt to highlight implementation status of RUSA (Rashtriya Uchchtar Shiksha Abhiyan), government’s flagship program to reform higher education sector, and the sector’s potential to attract foreign & private capital. An overview of key challenges and recent reforms has also been provided in the report.

In addition, the report provides a detailed insight into the socio-demographic data, key higher education indicators, university & college level statistics and trends in growth of student enrolment in all states & union territories amongst others.

Other Events and Highlights

- Special Session with Professor Christina Paxson, President, Brown University was organised in March 2014 in New Delhi. “Driving Change through Innovation in Higher Education” was the agenda of the discussion.

- In January 2014, President and Rector of Imperial College, London, Sir Keith O’Nions led an Interactive Session on “Innovation and Creating Value from Ideas” where he and Prof David Gann, Vice-President (Development and Innovation) shared some insights from Imperial College, London. Sir Keith, has been the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence in Britain, he brought with him a rich experience of more than 30 years in science and research.

- In July 2014, International Workshop on “Innovation for Universal Quality Education” was organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in partnership with the Planning Commission of India and the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI). The workshop brought together innovators, policymakers and researchers around the world who work in the field of educational innovations for the economically deprived in primary, secondary and informal education. The discussions included:

• Innovative policy programmes and projects
• Empirical evidence on the effectiveness of these programmes in terms of quality, access, affordability, efficiency and social externalities
• Implementation issues and business models in different contexts
• Role of community involvement in their implementation
• Scalability, diffusion and improvement of the programmes
• Identification of guidelines for governments and other organisations to successfully implement these projects and programmes