The 93rd annual meeting of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), which extensively deliberated on autonomy for excellence in higher education, concluded at the SOA University with the panelists emphasising on building a diverse and healthy academic ecosystem.
The speakers stressed that instead of striving for equality, institutions should look at a more diverse and healthy ecosystem where they would have the freedom to define their own excellence.
On the second day of the conference hosted by the SOA, two technical sessions were also held to discuss ‘Promotion of Sports and Sports Culture in Higher Education’ and the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution: Challenges for and response of Higher Education’.
Intervening in the deliberation on promotion of sports and sports culture in higher education, the AIU president Prof Sandeep Sancheti said academic institutions in India had not looked at sports in a fulsome fashion.
Prof Sancheti said cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar, who attended a recent zonal meeting of AIU, had pointed out that India was a ‘sport loving nation, not a sport playing one’ while emphasizing that there was a need to introduce sports as a mandatory subject in the curriculum.