Former Director of the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati Prof. T. G. Sitharam assumed the charge as the Chairman of All India Council for Technical Education on 21st December 2022. Prof. Sitharam took over charge from Prof. M Jagadesh Kumar, Chairperson, University Grants Commission, who had the additional charge of AICTE since September 2022. With the approval of the Minister of Education in his capacity as Chairperson of IIT Council, Prof. Parameswar K. Iyer took over charge as Officiating Director of IIT Guwahati from Prof. Sitharam on 20th December 2022.
Prof. T.G. Sitharam after taking over as the new chairman said, “I will work with every stakeholder in Education domain to transform Higher education into large, well resourced, vibrant multidisciplinary providing high-quality teaching, innovation, entrepreneurship, research, and community engagement hubs.”
Prof. Sitharam envisions providing transformative education to Indian students to create leaders and innovators, and generate new knowledge for a sustainable society. He envisions creating 5 types of pathways for competitive, modern and industrialized India:
- Technology driven outcome-based education
- Job-creator (JCR) mode
- Industry solutions provider (ISP)
- Innovation, research and startup mode
- Education in Indian languages
Focusing on multidisciplinary research areas in collaboration with international institutions and research centres while establishing a industry co-innovation network to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is another key focus area highlighted by the new AICTE Chairman.
In addition to this, the new AICTE Chairman has shared his action plan aligning with long term goals of the Government of India underlined in the National Education Policy 2020. These include:
- Building capacities of the technical institutions – digital infrastructure, Accreditations and Rankings
- Making students Industry ready, increase placements, Increase Internships
- Implementing Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan through Higher Education Institutes
- Incorporating PM GATI SHAKTI in academic programs
- Improving Public and Private partnership in skilling, employment & innovation
- Overcoming Regional/Language Barriers
- Twinning Programmes for collaboration with Foreign Universities
In his previous roles, Prof. Sitharam has worked on multidisciplinary problems addressing diversified societal challenges with many administrative positions at institutions such as IISc, IIT, CIT and involving in many boards along with more than six years of Interaction with AICTE.
