Dr. Latha K. C., Education Officer, UGC- SW Regional Office, Ministry of Education, GOI speaks about how UGC tackled with queries during pandemic

“I appreciate all institutes who took up our suggestions or our ideas, they were able to cope it up and they made it in a student-friendly way,” says Dr. Latha K. C., Education Officer, UGC- SW Regional Office, Ministry of Education, GOI in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm – Higher Education and Edtech Conclave & Awards 2022’ #HEETbengaluru

The way we have sailed across last two and a half years through the difficult times of Covid 19, how did your department respond to it, any message for the community at large?

Yes, last two years was horrible and it was like unimaginable for all of us especially for student community they had to face a lot many challenges, they had to come over. We supported as a government agency, UGC was able to support and take immediate actions then and when it was required either by the student community or the faculty community or even at institution level. So, we faced a lot but I’m happy to say that we could come over all of it together in a much better way. The most important thing over last two years, what we learned or what we understood is yes we need technology for our support with the help of technology and with the help of contribution by most of the industries in the mode of technology wise and other things we were able to come out of this situation in a better way which did not alter or completely change the current education system or whatever it is with a slightly new adaptions we were able to come out and we proved that yes together with the help of combination of knowledge as well as technology we were able to achieve that in this pandemic period and we came out successfully. We are thankful for all communities, it might be institutions or it might be faculties or it might be industries or it might be new ideas or technologies which came in demand so with all these helps we came out of it in a much better and nice and safer way.

How many universities in your region are there and what were the main queries to the UGC from them?

As I handle regional offices like most of the university queries and university issues would be addressed by head office, New Delhi. We do handle colleges like there are around 750 plus colleges that comes under my office we do handle all queries related to these colleges, student faculty as well as we do handle certain schemes over here so all these related issues were handled and certain issues were passed on head office where their involvement was to be there. Then we would pass it on, so yes regularly during pandemic it was like always every day our inbox used to be filled up with queries and questions also most of the times. Especially from student sector sometimes there used to be a lot of panic it might be exam point of view or other things. Yes, we would handle it and we would give the best solution in student point of view and we also requested and also, I appreciate all institutes who took up our suggestions or our ideas or students request or student ideas they were able to cope it up and they made it in a student-friendly way. They were able to come out with a student-friendly way of learning and teaching more so this I am happy and I would like to thank all institutes for this who could help us out or who could help student community in this during this time.

When you see the forums or the conclaves like this where we have the representation from government, from corporate and academia, how does it help to the society at large?

I would like to congratulate the whole team over here for organizing or bringing out such platforms for exchange of ideas between academy as well as industries. This is a great platform and as NEP point of view yes, it is in scope or we need such kind of platforms more and more for the exchange of ideas between academic section as well as industry section and both together we can achieve much better. So, there could be lot of new ideas or new opportunities that would be brought out through these platforms and it would be helpful for both the sectors.

ArdorComm Media which is a media start-up has just completed its one year of existence today so we are celebrating our first anniversary, any message would you like to give to ArdorComm Media?

I would like to congratulate, listening to your background story in the inaugural session I was quite amazed, like staying at home with just 12 people you are able to reach out at this stage bringing together so many academicians as well as so many industries in under one platform. So, I congratulate for successful completion and I wish you and I want you to organize more and more of such platforms. You can make it in much specific also if you would like to if you get it to the deeper curriculum part, so you can have that. You can take up one particular topic and you can bring both industry as well as academicians together and have more so I wish to have more and more I wish to see you celebrating 100^th with the same speed as well as success and I wish you a great success in future.