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UGC launches professors of practice portal to create pool of industry experts
The PoP portal will bridge the gap between academia and industry by facilitating the hiring of experienced professionals in different domains
The University Grants Commission (UGC) on Tuesday launched an online portal with an aim to create a pool of industry experts and professionals that can be hired by the higher education institutions as professors of practice (PoPs).
The PoP portal will bridge the gap between academia and industry by facilitating the hiring of experienced professionals in different domains, said UGC chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar while launching the portal.
The commission introduced the professor of practice scheme in August last year for higher education institutions as a part of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 implementation.
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The objective behind introducing this new faculty category is to bring in distinguished experts from various fields such as engineering, science, technology, entrepreneurship, commerce, social sciences, media, and literature, among others, into academia.
“Our country has a huge pool of experts coming from different professions. Even as the UGC has issued the guidelines for the PoP scheme, there is no common platform where experts can register themselves and universities can identify them. Therefore, to fill up this gap, the UGC has designed this PoP portal,” Kumar said.
On this portal, the experts can register themselves and upload their biodata.
“They can also check which all universities require professors of practice and can contact them. Similarly, education institutions can also register and advertise their requirements, and reach out to the experts,” Kumar added.’
The UGC will also be writing to industrial bodies and organisations to encourage their professionals to register themselves on the portal.
“This way, we are aiming to create a pool of professionals that will be hired by the universities under the scheme. This portal will also provide real time information to the UGC on many PoPs who have been hired by higher education institutions at a given point of time,” the UGC chairperson said.
Experts with proven expertise of at least 15 years will be eligible for the posts of PoP. No formal academic qualification will be taken into consideration if the candidate has exemplary professional practice.
Besides, the UGC also launched the UTSAH portal to track implementation of NEP 2020 in higher education institutions across the country and relaunched its official website.
“The UTSAH portal will serve as a repository for Regulations, Guidelines, and Frameworks issued by the UGC, ensuring easy accessibility for all stakeholders. The portal provides a platform for higher education institutions to showcase their achievements, share best practices, and engage in knowledge-sharing with other institutions. It also enables institutions to access various UGC schemes, monitor their progress, and submit reports online.,” Kumar said.
