Strengthening the Sustainability & Accelerating Ambitions At Higher Educational Institutes

The world is witnessing a massive behavioral and developmental transformation in India. The citizens now have the powerful will and energy to shape India under the leadership of a dynamic Government.

Youth plays an important role in transforming their own country and hence the world. To streamline the energy of youth and channel it in nation-building the Indian government has launched New Education Policy in 2020. The new education policy has the potential to revolutionize the education sector and it can carve out the path for the Vision-2047 Year 2047 is the 100^th year of Independence of India

The initiative to bring upon this change and to mainstream sustainability in the higher education institutes across India has been launched by strengthening the ties between AICTE ( All India Council for higher education institute ) and SCCN ( Smart Campus Cloud Network) of TERRE Policy Centre.

Collaboration of AICTE and TERRE will now be enhanced given the need for carbon neutrality, faster advances in digital technology, and the need to have India's ranking system for Universities and HEIs.

On the occasion of Shikshak Parva (12 days starting from 5^th September, which is celebrated as Teachers' Day in India ) AICTE and TERRE signed MoU to strengthen their collaboration for the benefit of teachers and students. Collaboration between AICTE and TERRE will include the effectiveness and evaluation of the 'Clean and Smart Campus National Award' program to accelerate the achieving of SDGs by localizing them on campus.

A clean campus does not mean only ' clean' in the traditional sense free from dirt. It means that a campus that uses clean energy, clean water, and clean air. ' SMART campus leverages the latest digital technology trends like cloud Networking, IoT, Artificial Intelligence.

The MoU was signed by Prof Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman of AICTE and Dr, Rajendra Shende, Chairman TERRE Policy Centre The auspicious presence of Prof. M.P Poonia, Vice Chairman of AICTE; Prof. Rajive Kumar, Member Secretary of AICTE; Prof. Dileep Malkhede, Adviser-I of AICTE; Col. A Shreenath, Director, Policy & Academic Planning of AICTE; Lt. Col Kailash Bansal, Director of AICTE; Dr Pradeep Bhaskar, Assistant Director, and Er. Devadevan, Assistant Director, Policy & Academic Planning Bureau of AICTE.

Atharva Prabhune represented Dr Rajendra Shende, Chairman of TERRE Policy Centre

Prof Sahasrabudhe, Chairman of AICTE said, " Signing the MOU with TERRE represents the new way of teaching the youth about SDGs. It also reflects the essential reorientation needed to suit the New Education Policy of India launched in 2020"

"The collaboration between TERRE and AICTE indeed is a game-changer. It makes definite contributions to localize the SDGs in the HEI's Campus and create positive competition among HEIs across India", he added.

" The educational campuses are where the minds of the youth are molded, actions are activated, and innovations are incubated," said Dr Rajendra Shende Chairman of TERRE. "The project of 'Not-ZeroNet-Zero' supported by AICTE along with UNESCO in Paris, and GORD ( Gulf Organisation of Research and Development) in Qatar, will trigger the movement of carbon neutrality" added Dr. Shende