Vidyanjali seeks to involve community, private and public sector, NGOs, NRIs, and PIOs

NEW DELHI, Jan 4 (The CONNECT) -The Union Ministry of Education (MOE) has started registration in the Vidyanjali Higher Education Volunteer Programme, aimed at creating a robust team of volunteers who can positively impact the nation’s higher education system by contributing with academic, training, and infrastructure support.

To participate in this programme both volunteers and institutions can sign up here. Individuals need to register on the platform for the specialized areas that they need to volunteer for in the program. Volunteers can then interact with Higher Education institutes directly and contribute to the institution’s academic service and activity with relevant knowledge and skillset. Volunteers can also sign up to help institutions by donating assets and equipment.

Vidyanjali Higher Education Volunteer Programme is aimed at strengthening support to students, faculties, and institutions of higher educations by volunteerism through the involvement of the community, private and public sector, NGOs, NRIs, and PIOs.

AICTE vice-chairman Prof. M.P. Poonia said: “This is an important initiative of the Ministry of Education (MOE) that would benefit the country's higher education programme. Almost 40 million students are in higher education and our foremost task is to benefit them from both government and society. India has a huge youth population and we want to convert this into a strong human resource for the country. This is in line with our dream to make an Aatmanirbhar Bharat. We need to integrate every available resource in the country and pool them together to make this program a success.”

This initiative would connect institutions of higher education with varied volunteers from the Indian diaspora namely young professionals, retired and working teachers, retired and working government officials, professionals, and students of PG and Ph.D. levels.

There are almost 27 academic activities and sponsorship services that volunteers can chip in with for their services. Volunteers can also support institutions with basic civil and electrical infrastructure, classroom equipment for teaching, and digital infrastructure.