Najma Akhtar, who has spent nearly four decades in academic planning and administration, took over as the first woman Vice-Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia as it heads towards marking its centenary year in 2020.
Action plan
Interacting with the media on her first day as V-C, Prof. Akhtar said that she would start more job-oriented courses, improve innovation and entrepreneurship training and will look for different avenues of fund generation for the university. She added that she would take a complete look at all the courses that are offered at Jamia and see which are the ones that need to be updated to suit industry requirements.
“We need to create job givers and not job seekers by igniting the entrepreneurial spirit in students and helping them with their funding and expertise in the initial phases,” said the new Vice-Chancellor.
Talking about improving Jamia’s position in the ranking structure, Prof. Akhtar said that the university needs to enrol more international students and collaborate with foreign universities.
Prof. Akhtar said that one of the things she would like to do in her tenure would be to start a medical college on the campus but it was not going to be an easy task.
Prof. Akhtar also said that she would like to improve the gender ratio in the university and have 50% female students by building more hostels and facilities.
Vast experience
Formerly associated with the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), Prof. Akhtar is known for spearheading the international educational administrators’ course for senior officials from 130 countries for more than 15 years at the institute. She developed the first state level management institute (SIEMET) at Allahabad for developing educational administrators for the country. A gold medallist of Aligarh Muslim University, Prof. Akhtar also studied at University of Warwick.
