The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee will host a conference of Vice Chancellors/Directors/Director General of institutions of higher learning for which he is Visitor from November 4 to 6, 2015 at Rashtrapati Bhavan. This is the first time such a conference bringing together at one forum all heads of higher education institutions is being convened by President Mukherjee. Earlier, separate conferences were held of Vice Chancellors of Central Universities, Directors of NITs, IITs, IISERs and IISC.

The agenda for the Visitor’s Conference includes (a) improving the quality of higher education in institutions to bring them at par with the top institutions of the world; (b) capacity development of faculty; (c) engagement of institutes of higher learning with community and society for sustainable and inclusive development and (d) promotion of gender equity and cultural inclusion through higher education.

The Prime Minister, Union Ministers of Shipping, Chemicals and Fertilizers and Human Resource Development; Ministers of State for Human Resource Development; Nobel Peace Laureate Shri Kailash Satyarthi, Prof. CNR Rao and Prof. MS Swaminathan will attend the conference.

This release issued at 1715 hrs.