Teachers Day Special: How Prof Anil D Sahasrabudhe transformed AICTE from an old-school Regulator to a progressive Facilitator

September 1, 2022 marks the end of an era in All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). On this date, Prof Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, AICTE stepped down from his position as he attained the age of 65. However, appreciating the transformation that he had brought at AICTE, the Government immediately appointed him as the Chairman of the newly formed National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) with same remuneration, perks and privileges as are applicable to the Chairman of AICTE. For continuity, Government entrusted the additional charge of Chairman of AICTE temporarily to Professor M Jagadesh Kumar, Chairman, University Grants Commission till the appointment of a regular Chairman.

This special article, published on September 5^th, the Teacher’s Day 2022, by Dr Harivansh Chaturvedi, Alt President, Education Promotion Society of India (EPSI) and Mr Amit Agnihotri, Founder, MBAUniverse.com and INDIAN MANAGEMENT CONCLAVE, attempts to record the key contributions made by Prof Sahasrabudhe in transforming AICTE from an old-school Regulator to cutting-edge modern Facilitator.

But, first a few words about Prof Anil D. Sahasrabudhe, a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at IIT Guwahati. Dr Sahasrabudhe is a career academician with an illustrious career and has held several important Academic, Research and Administrative positions. He started his career as Scientific Officer, at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1983 and moved to Tata Consulting Engineers (TCE) as Engineer in the same year. He was Director, College of Engineering, Pune (CoEP) since 2006 on deputation from IIT, Guwahati prior to joining AICTE. Prof Sahasrabudhe joined AICTE as Chairman in July 2015.

In Dr Sahasrabudhe’s leadership, AICTE has undertaken many important policy decisions that have strengthened management education in India.

Key transformations
Prof Anil D Sahasrabudhe led several transformations at AICTE during his seven year long tenure. Authors interacted with him on numerous occasions and observed positive changes in the working of the AICTE in his leadership. His vision was instrumental in bringing following valuable transformations in Indian technical education:

1. Work Culture: Transformation in the work culture at AICTE has happened during his tenure. There is more institutional-centricity and humility in the behaviour of officers and staff. As it is said, it all flows from the top!

2. Rapid Digitization: AICTE underwent massive digitization during the last five years spanning almost all functions. By digitalising of the working of its operations, AICTE could demonstrate greater transparency and speedy decision making. Even during the peak of COVID 19 pandemic, much of inspections and approvals were done online.

3. Trust & confidence building: AICTE Chairman bridged the trust deficit and created confidence amongst 10,000+ colleges. He regularly addressed conferences organized by CII, FICCI, EPSI, MBAUniverse.com and other organizations on issues related to technical & higher education. He visited more than 200 institutions all across the country during his tenure as the Chairman. These outreach efforts made AICTE more open and accessible.

4. Promoting innovation and entrepreneurship: Prof Sahasrabudhe was at the forefront of promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in technical education. He personally led the organization of several Hackathon and Competitions. AICTE’s Smart India Hackathon is a nationwide initiative to provide students a platform to solve some of pressing problems we face in our daily lives, and thus inculcate a culture of product innovation and a mindset of problem solving. The last edition of the hackathon saw over 5 million + students from various engineering colleges compete for the top prize at 35+ locations.

5. Promoting Skill Development & Internships: In last five years, AICTE has partnered with leading organization like Microsoft to empower students and educators with future skills. As part of partnership with Microsoft, more than 1,500 Microsoft course modules were made available to students and educators free of charge via the ELIS of AICTE’s e-learning portal.

In a progressive move, AICTE instituted annual ‘Internship Day’ in 2018-19. Idea gained momentum soon, and in 2021, AICTE and its partners offered 6.1 lakh internships in a single day! Speaking on the occasion, Prof. Sahasrabudhe said, "Last year, 5 lakh internships were conducted, and this year, it could be more again. We are adding 6.1 lakh internships in a single day, which means whatever we reached in one year, we are achieving the milestone in a very single day. By 2025 AICTE has set up plans to have 1 Crore internships"

6. Promotion of Indian Knowledge System: Promoting ‘Indian Knowledge System’ was close to Prof. Sahasrabudhe’s heart. In his leadership, AICTE took many initiatives to promote IKS. AICTE has introduced a new course on IKS in higher educational institutions in accordance with National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The course aims to embed and re-strengthen the rich heritage of Indian Knowledge in the formal educational curriculum. AICTE invited Research Proposals on various aspects of IKS and received 156 Research proposals out of which 15 have been selected. AICTE also conducted Faculty Development programs on Indian Knowledge System (IKS). On the occasion, Prof. Anil D Sahasrabudhe said: “If we don’t make changes to our education policies now it will be very difficult for us to pass on the values of Indian Knowledge System (IKS) to our children. And if we want to make students learn about IKS the first step is to make the teachers aware about it.”

7. Resolving legal skirmish with PGDM: Last but not the least, as a Statesman, Prof Sahasrabudhe worked with PGDM B-schools to amicably solve a long drawn legal issue related to the withdrawal of autonomy of PGDM institutions. Speaking on several occasions at EPSI and MBAUniverse.com conferences, Prof Sahasrabudhe assured PGDM B-schools of their rightful place in the post-NEP regime.

These are several other contributions that Prof Sahasrabudhe made to Indian technical and management education. Entire technical education community in India shall continue to look forward to Prof Anil Sahasrabudhe’s continued guidance.

Authors:
Dr Harivansh Chaturvedi, Alt President, Education Promotion Society of India (EPSI), and Mr Amit Agnihotri, Founder MBAUniverse.com and INDIAN MANAGEMENT CONCLAVE.