Jamia Vice-Chancellor Najma Akhtar to receive Padma Shri award today

NEW DELHI: Jamia Millia Islamia Vice-Chancellor Najma Akhtar will receive Padma Shri award today for her invaluable contribution in the field of literature and education. President Ram Nath Kovind will confer Akhtar with the award at a ceremony to be held at the Darbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan today. The ceremony can be watched on Padma Awards portal - www.padmaawards.gov.in.

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Professor Akhtar has the distinction of being the first woman Vice-Chancellor of JMI which has been accredited with A++ rank by National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC) in December, 2021. She is recognized as a leading educationist for having brought transformation in the delivery of quality education in premier educational institutions of the country, as per an official statement from the university.

Akhtar led JMI to bag 6th rank in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Ministry of Education (MoE). Under her leadership the university also achieved outstanding performance by securing 95.23 percent score among all central universities in a performance evaluation done by the Ministry of Education for the year 2019-20, said the statement.

Works of Najma Akhtar

She has worked as Professor and served as the head of the Department of Training and Capacity Building in Education at National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), New Delhi.

She also worked in the Distance Education Programme at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and was the Founder Director of the State Director of the State Institute of Educational Management and Training (SIEMAT) at erstwhile Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh.

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She has also held the position of Director, Academic Programmes at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) besides the coveted position of Controller of Examinations and Admissions in AMU.

Moreover, Akhtar has been a visitor's nominee on the Selection Committee and Executive Committee of Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), Hyderabad, Delhi University, Assam University and JMI. She has been a member of the management committee of Delhi Public School; empowered committee of Bihar State Madarsa Education Board; high level expert committee of the Ministry of Defence; National Steering Committee of the Ministry of Education; Board of Management, Jamia Hamdard.

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She has also been the Delhi Member of General Assembly of Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR), New Delhi, member of National Academic Advisory Committee of the Indian Social Science Academy and Search Committee for appointment of new Vice-Chancellor of Kashmir University; Experts Group on National Education Policy (NEP) 2020; Speaker of Senate at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi; University Council Cluster University, Srinagar and Governing Council, Association of Indian Universities.

Najma Akhtar received her PhD in Education on the topic “A Comparative Study on Conventional and Distance Education System of Higher Education”. She has a masters degree in Education and MSc in Botany and has been a gold medalist.