Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Wednesday directed universities in Jammu and Kashmir to introduce the ‘Design Your Degree’ (DYD) programme within six months as part of efforts to reform higher education in the Union Territory.The deadline was set during a meeting of the Jammu and Kashmir Higher Education Council (JKHEC), chaired by Sinha at Lok Bhavan, where measures to implement the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and modernise undergraduate and postgraduate education were discussed.
The meeting also deliberated on sharing academic credits and institutional resources among universities, besides restructuring UG and PG courses in accordance with the DYD framework and NEP 2020.
Sinha called for universities to pool their academic credits, research laboratories and other resources to strengthen cooperation and improve the utilisation of existing infrastructure.
“Transforming higher education in Jammu Kashmir into a comprehensive, holistic, and visionary system is a shared responsibility,” he said.
He stressed the need to translate the Council’s initiatives into measurable outcomes, ensuring that students benefit from better utilisation of institutional resources. He also underlined the importance of sustained institutional reforms and long-term planning to strengthen collaboration among universities.
The meeting further discussed the proposed constitution of a task force to examine the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Data Science into undergraduate and postgraduate curricula.
The Lieutenant Governor emphasised the need to incorporate emerging technologies into academic programmes while ensuring that local languages and cultural perspectives remained an integral part of the curriculum.JKHEC Vice-Chairman Professor Dinesh Singh called for policy directives to align undergraduate and postgraduate courses with the Design Your Degree framework.Vice-Chancellors and other Council members also presented their suggestions on implementing the DYD programme and various interventions envisaged under NEP 2020.The Council reviewed the progress of ongoing higher education initiatives, including Engineering Kitchens and entrepreneurship programmes. It also examined budgetary allocations and proposed reforms to the mechanism for distributing funds.
The meeting was attended by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Minister for School and Higher Education Shamim Firdous, JKHEC Vice-Chairman Professor Dinesh Singh, Acting Chief Secretary Shailendra Kumar, Principal Secretary to the Lieutenant Governor Govind Jaiswal, Commissioner Secretary, Higher Education Department, Ram Niwas Sharma, Vice-Chancellors of universities in Jammu and Kashmir, Directors of IIT Jammu, IIM Jammu and NIT Srinagar, and other Council members.