Unnat Bharat Abhiyan, the flagship programme of Ministry of Education, Govt. of India aims at to create a vibrant relationship between the society and higher educational institutions. The National Education Policy 2020 lays a great emphasis on community engagement as part of regular learning. The knowledge base and resources of the Premier Institutions of the country are to be leveraged to bring in transformational change in the rural developmental process. It also aims at to create a vibrant relationship between the society and the higher educational institutes, with the latter providing the knowledge and technology support to improve the livelihoods in rural areas and to upgrade the capabilities of both the public and private organizations in the society.

Institutes through their faculty and students, will carry out studies of living conditions in the adopted villages, assess the local problems and needs, workout the possibilities of leveraging the technological interventions and the need to improve the processes in the implementation of various government schemes, prepare workable action plans for the selected villages. Such knowledge inputs would make their way into the development programmes in rural areas. The institutes would be expected to closely coordinate with district administration, elected public representatives of Panchayat /villages and other stakeholders and will become a part of process of development planning and implementation.

Unnat Bharat Abhiyan is inspired by the vision of transformational change in rural development processes by leveraging knowledge institutions to help build the architecture of an Inclusive India. Its mission is conceptualized as a movement to enable processes that connect institutes of higher education with local communities to address the developmental challenges of rural India through participatory processes and appropriate technologies for accelerating sustainable growth. It also aims to create a virtuous cycle between the society and an inclusive university system by providing knowledge and practices for emerging professions and to upgrade the capabilities of both the public and the private sectors. In this connection, Central University of Odisha has adopted five villages namely Nuaguda, Chakraliput, Rajpalam,Chikapara and Balda of Sunabeda block adjacent to the University under the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan.

As the part of Unnat Bharat Abhiyan, Central University of Odisha has been nominated by UGC as Regional Centre of Eastern region for Capacity Building of faculty as Master Trainers for Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR). Community engagement and social responsibility in higher education are emerging as new fields of professional competence internationally. It will also contribute to improvements in quality of both teaching and research in HEIs in India. This will also extend an opportunity to understand the potential strengths and weakness of every part of India; to know our country in real sense. Regional centre will be responsible for organising capacity building programmes for master trainers in community-based participatory research. Given the diversity of communities in the country, and variety of socio-ecological zones, it is important that students understand the local community well. The training of Master Trainers and teachers in CBPR must, therefore, be conducted in regional locations, with regional cultures, languages, social and economic practices. Decentralized Regional Centres can provide such continuous learning opportunity for teachers. This will help sensitize teachers to local realities of communities and local socio-economic development programmes.

As envisioned by National Education Policy 2020, community engagement must be a part of regular learning. Unnat Bharat Abhiyan is inspired by the vision of transformational change in rural development processes by leveraging knowledge institutions to help build the architecture of an Inclusive India. The Mission is to enable higher educational institutions to work with the people of rural India in identifying development challenges and evolving appropriate solutions for accelerating sustainable growth. It also aims to create a virtuous cycle between society and an inclusive academic system by providing knowledge and practices for emerging professions and to upgrade the capabilities of both the public and the private sectors in responding to the development needs of rural India.

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