The Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan or RUSA is a centrally sponsored scheme that was launched in the year 2013 and operates a mission mode for funding the State Government Universities and colleges in order to achieve the aims of equity, access and excellence. The Government approved the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan for continuation till the 31st of March 2026 or further review, whichever is earlier.
Objectives of the scheme
Some of the primary objectives of the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan are listed below:
- In order to improve the overall quality of state institutions by ensuring conformity to prescribed norms and standards and adopt accreditation as a mandatory quality assurance framework.
- To Asha transformative forms in the state’s higher education system by creating a facilitating institutional structure dedicated to planning and monitoring at the state level, promoting autonomy in state universities and also improving governance in institutions.
- In order to ensure reforms in affiliation, examination and academic systems.
- To guarantee adequate availability of good quality faculty in all higher educational institutions and also ensure capacity building at all levels of employment
- To generate an enabling atmosphere in the higher educational institutions in order to devote themselves to research and innovations.
- To expand the institutional base by creating additional capacity in already existing institutions and also establishing new institutions to achieve enrollment targets
- to correct regional imbalances in access to higher education by setting institutions in rural and unserved areas
- to improve equity e in higher education by providing adequate opportunities to higher education to scheduled caste and Scheduled Tribes and the socially and educationally backward classes, And also promoting the inclusion of women minorities and the differently-abled persons
Major Impacts and Targets
RUSA 1.0
- The target of RUSA 1.0 is to achieve the Gross Enrollment Ratio or GER target of 25.2 % by the end of the 12th plan and 32% by the end of the 13th plan.
RUSA 2.0
- The target of RUSA 2.0 is to increase the spending of States on higher education as a per cent of GSDP to 2% or above
- Also, ensure all the state Institutions are NAAC accredited by the end of the month of March 2020 as a part of the compulsory Quality Assurance framework
- To reduce the student-teacher ratio to 15:1 in institutions by the end of the month of March 2020. increasing the National GER to 32% by March 2022.
- To ensure that the number of colleges that are affiliated with the State University is reduced to 200
- To make sure the growth of g e r with more inclusion of disadvantaged groups like the schedule caste, schedule tribe, women, etc
- And also make sure that all states participate in AISHE and data pertaining to all state institutions is furnished.
RUSA 3.0 The new phase of the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan targets to reach out to the unserved and the underserved areas that are remote and have difficult Geographies. Areas like the LWE area, NER, Tier 2 cities, aspirational districts and areas with low GER. to benefit the most disadvantaged