Smart, Smarter and the Smartest

History is made: Results would be out soon 

Ranking for the wealthy people in the world is pass time of many media agencies. That exercise is well surveyed and recorded with great regularity. University ranking based on academic criteria is also made available globally and nationally almost annually.

But here comes the ranking of the top universities in India based on their 'campus sustainability' criteria. It is not about sustaining the admissions in the universities or sustaining the number of graduates that many universities take pride in, but it is about sustained contribution by the university and college campuses for United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). What's important is that the ranking would include key criteria related to the use of clean and renewable energy, climate friendly practices and contribution to India's pledges for Paris Climate Agreement. Coming at the time when United Nations would hold Climate Summit on 23^rd September 2019 in New York, the grading of the Universities would be in focus.

It is like ranking the wealthy people based on how environment-friendly their lifestyle is!

I was, as Chairman of TERRE Policy Centre and the initiator of Smart Campus Cloud Network (SCCN), recently invited by the Ministry of HRD to advise and devise a first ever national competition in India to rank the campuses based on the practices they follow to make practical contribution to SDGs. How they deploy the front-end technologies to deliver, monitor and assess their progress, was the key indicator for such exercise.

Campus where students and faculty contribute to the SDGs by leveraging the potential of digital technologies like IoT (Internet of Things), AI (Artificial Intelligence), Big Data, Cloud networking is termed as 'Smart Campus'. So, in short, this national competition is about ranking smart, smarter and the smartest campuses of the Higher Education Institutes (HEIs).

All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), an organization of India's Ministry of Human Resource Development headed by Prof Anil Sahasrabudhe, an educationist who is passionate about SDGs, took the task to launch it mid-May 2019.

AICTE along with TERRE Policy Centre and International Institute of Waste Management (IIWM) finalized the concept note, guidebook and digitally enabled questionnaire on Clean and Smart Campus. Online Portal allowed registration of the institutes and the submission of response to questionnaire remained opened for more than a month. After closure of the portal on 19^thJuly, short listing of the campus was carried out digitally.

More than 1500 educational institutes from 30 states and union territories registered. That included even Jammu & Kashmir and Andaman Nicobar Islands. 739 of them submitted the responses to the questionnaire. 

Seven verification teams visited 36 shortlisted campus of universities, colleges including polytechnics all around India and carried out on-site rigorous checks. Their reports with grades and statements are now under final assessment by the eminent juries.

'For the first time in Asia, and probably in the world, the history is made by India to grade the educational campuses based on their contribution to SDGs, i.e. sustainable practices followed by them', said Lt. Col Bansal, Director SDC of AICTE, the coordinator for the project.

India is moving forward to create the education revolution by embedding the SDGs in the education. The awards would be announced on the occasion of 150^th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi who famously said, 'Be the change you want to see'.

Universities have resolved to be that change. 

By Rajendra Shende,

Chairman TERRE Policy Centre

Former Director UNEP