Registrations have begun for the Ministry of Education’s volunteering initiative — Vidyanjali Higher Education on the official portal of the University Grants Commission (UGC). Those interested in volunteering and providing academic and other support to students, teachers, and institutions through the involvement of the community, private and public sector, NGOs, NRIs, PIOs, etc can apply now. Both the institutions and volunteers will have to register for the same. As per the official notice, the scheme will cover three things — handholding for institution development, faculty members, and students.
Volunteers will be selected by the colleges and universities via a face-to-face virtual meeting. The initiative includes “interactive learning facilitated by volunteers and through digitalisation can make learning in classrooms interesting, resulting in students attending colleges regularly, even in remote areas,” reads the official notice by the commission.
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The list of categories in which the volunteers can contribute include civil, digital, electrical infrastructure, classroom needs, equipment for indoor and outdoor games, health and safety aids, teaching-learning materials, office needs, labs, maintenance, and repair.
UGC Vidyanjali Higher Education: Who can volunteer?
For volunteering purpose, students must be one class above the student to whom academic support is to be provided. For instance, the students currently in their fourth year of an undergraduate programme may become volunteer to provide academic support to the third-year students and so on. Volunteers will not receive any remuneration.
UGC Vidyanjali Higher Education: Steps to follow for institutions
Step 1. Initiate and define code of ethics for volunteer/ selfless contribution. Issue guidelines for ecosystem functioning.
Step 2. Create an online portal for governance, administration, and match-making of beneficiaries with volunteers.
Step 3. Develop volunteer base which includes retd teachers, serving and retired scientists, government officials, retired armed forces personnel, alumni of educational institutions, NRIs, PIOs, homemakers, recipients of various scholarship schemes (PG level and above), NGOs, private organisation, NSS, NCC, etc.
Step 4. Create beneficiary list — students, area mapping, etc.
Step 5. Invite and register volunteers, donors, certified NGOs, and other contributors.
Step 6. Maintain reporting and transparency through a dashboard, regular announcement, upgrades, and disclosures.
UGC Vidyanjali Higher Education: How will the volunteering system work?
This two-way system will act as connecting the beneficiaries with volunteers and vice versa. The initiative will work in such a way that the students, faculties, and colleges create the request and the same is to be matched with the existing volunteers. If the institutes like what the volunteer has to offer, the process will move further to complete the other formalities. Similarly, a volunteer would be able to see the available requests from the beneficiary and select the same for providing support as per their convenience.
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For providing direct support to the beneficiaries, the volunteer and recipients both need to register on the online Vidyanjali Higher Education portal. After approval, the process of connecting the beneficiary with available resources will begin based on the preference of the beneficiaries and volunteers. In the case of institutions, the volunteer and the college will fix a specified time slot when the volunteer can make the contribution offered in assets/ material/equipment, UGC said.
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