Overview : RUSA

Campus years are treasured by graduates long after they leave the hallowed portals of their universities. Not only does that time shape their thinking, this phase allows young minds to open up, to understand the path they want to take, and sometimes, more importantly, the road they don’t want to follow.

With that at the very core, the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan, a centrally sponsored programme, aims to work with 300-plus state universities and its affiliated colleges to raise the bar of campus life.

Launched in 2013, the RUSA aims at providing strategic funding to eligible state higher educational institutions. The central funding (in the ratio of 60:40 for general category states, 90:10 for special category states and 100% for union territories) is based on norms and is outcome dependent.

Funds flow from the central ministry through the state governments/union territories to the State Higher Education Councils before reaching the identified institutions. Funding to states would be made on the basis of the critical appraisal of State Higher Education Plans, which would enlist each state’s strategy to address issues of equity, access and excellence in higher education.

RUSA places greater emphasis on the improvement of the quality of teaching-learning processes in order to produce employable and competitive graduates, post-graduates and PhDs. Spread across two plan periods (XII and XIII), the programme focuses on state higher educational institutions and draws upon the best practices from colleges and universities across the nation.

In short, RUSA isn’t a touch-up tint of paint .It is the central government’s plan to develop every state university to its most exemplary version

Objectives

The salient objectives of RUSA are:

1. Improve the overall quality of state institutions by ensuring conformity to prescribed norms and standards and adopt accreditation as a mandatory quality assurance framework.

2. Usher transformative reforms in the state higher education system by creating a facilitative institutional structure for planning and monitoring at the state level, promoting autonomy in State Universities and improving governance in institutions.

3. Ensure reforms in the affiliation, academic and examination systems.

4. Ensure adequate availability of quality faculty in all higher educational institutions and promote capacity building at all levels of employment.

5. Create an enabling atmosphere in the higher educational institutions to promote research and innovation.

6. Expand institutional base by creating additional capacity in existing institutions and establish new institutions, to achieve higher enrollment.

7. Correct the regional imbalances in terms of access to higher education by setting up institutions in un-served and underserved areas of the country.

8. Improve equity in higher education by providing adequate opportunities of higher education to SC/STs and socially and educationally backward classes; promote inclusion of women, minorities, and differently abled persons.

Components

The following are the primary components of RUSA that capture the key action and funding areas that must be pursued for the fulfillment of the targets.

1. Creation of Universities by conversion of colleges in a cluster

2. Creation of Universities by upgradation of existing Autonomous College

3. Enhancing Quality and Excellence in select Autonomous Colleges

4. Equity Initiatives (Component-09)

5. Faculty Improvement

6. Faculty Recruitment Support

7. Infrastructure grants to colleges

8. Infrastructure grants to Universities

9. Institutional Restructuring, Capacity building and Reforms

10. New Colleges (Professional)

11. New Model Degree Colleges