JMI Place in World Ranking with Quality Research and Innovative teaching
By OUR STAFF REPORTER
Talat Ahmad, the new vice chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, in his first interaction with the media at a press conference held at Yasser Arafat Hall in JMI on 16 July, outlined his priority to enable Jamia to find suitable place in national and world ranking with quality research and innovative learning and to establish medical college with 300-bed hospital in order to meet the requirements of Delhi and NCR.
Professor Ahmad’s vision and roadmap for the university in the next five years, as opined by him, is to put Jamia on the national scene and get it placed in international ranking for which the university has submitted its Global Institutional Profile for Global Ranking with the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Ranking through Thomson Reuters. For that purpose efforts would be made to encourage more and more students and teachers to do valuable research and take up national and international projects that can help people and the country as well as to generate funds for the university.
He also informed that he would collaborate with JNU, DU and IIT to share resources and expertise where students from Jamia or students from other universities can move from one campus to another to avail the best to pursue their interest in acquiring knowledge because there might be expert available for one subject at one place and another at another place and movement of students will facilitate quality learning. Students should have access to all experts in their domain and open to utilise the best resources available. He also spoke of choice based credit system which will allow students to choose subjects of their interests.
Ahmad asked the teachers and students of Jamia to take up projects like he himself is doing at Kedarnath where the devastation took place and thereby help the nation and become a party to all national efforts which will surely help the university to be in the limelight. It will also help to carry out more research, generate resources and funds and of course contribute to the nation building. The University just cannot wait to have money from UGC. For extra-curricular activities, projects of varied nature have to be undertaken to meet the other expenses which are essential for the growth and development of the University.
Talat Ahmad also said since long there was a need of a government hospital in the neighbouring area and the university is planning to establish 300-bed hospitals possibly on the 114-acre land which came into possession of the University after a long drawn battle in the Supreme Court. Jamia VC, while replying to a question, told Radiance that along with hospital a medical college will also be established and for that the university has already approached the Human Resources Ministry and will meet the Delhi Government to get the permission and if it goes as expected then it may take two to three years time for the medial college and the hospital to come up.
He added that the university has already got a faculty of Dentistry and Centre for Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Sciences and there are also plans to build a School of Earth Atmosphere and Planetary Science on the acquired property along with shifting of some over-burdened departments. He has announced medical insurance cover to all students.
The Vice-Chancellor, while replying to a question on the student’s union election, promised to hold elections but gave no specific time period. He said he was in favour to revive the Union election but the matter is in court and once it gets resolved then only any effort would be made to hold the election. Students Union was dissolved in 2006 following faceoff between students Union and the proctor as a precautionary measure to prevent violence.
Professor Ahmad rejected the allegation that he is against Urdu and said that he was not mad to close Urdu department and these are just baseless allegations. On the contrary, he said he would do all in his capacity to enrich the language and also promised to bring Urdu journalism under the umbrella of famous MCRC in order to make it more job-oriented. He also said that if a language is compulsory, it is better to get it introduced at the elementary and primary levels and it would be wrong to ask a student to suddenly study a language and to pass out to get the his degree. “In engineering faculty, the Urdu language is not compulsory and if it be made, so it should be made uniform across all departments and faculties.” He also informed that in the current academic year certificate course in Urdu has been introduced.
Vice Chancellor, while emphasising the north east policy said that all efforts would be made to protect and prevent North-East students from any kind of violence and discrimination. And for that matter he has decided to dedicate space on the Jamia website linked with Delhi Police portal to highlight various issues and concerns of students from north eastern states. He also said that there would be zero tolerance not only against violence against north east students but also any kind of violence. He took pride to declare that not a single case of violence was reported against North East students and efforts would be made to ensure it does not take place in future.
The other measures announced in the vision document are NAAC Accreditation, provision for Credit Transfer, 12 smart class rooms, Central Instrumentation Facility, ICT based learning, Communicative English Programme, Self Enrichment Programme and Digital Resource Centre including revamping of placement cell and special attention would be given to IAS coaching to increase the tally. Vice chancellor also asked the expert of various fields in the teacher’s community to brush up young generation so that there is no vacuum created when they are retired.
Talat Ahmad, basically a geologist of international repute working in Himalayan rocks, was Vice Chancellor of Kashmir University for three years before joining Jamia on 15 May 2014.