UGC launches Annual Capacity Building Plan for growth, skill enhancement of employees

NEW DELHI: The University Grants Commission (UGC) has launched the Annual Capacity Building Plan (ACBP) for growth and skill development of its employees. As part of the plan, the UGC employees will be trained in four focus areas – behavioral, functional, domain, and technology competencies.

While training in behavioral competencies will help the UGC staff with the ability to take up bigger roles than usually performed, functional competencies will assist them do better in administration, procurement and financial management. Enhancing domain competencies will help the employees perform better in policy making or project management. Training in newer technology competencies will help them improve time management, efficiency, better digital record-keeping and help utilize technology platforms to reach out to the stakeholders.

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“The idea is to build, develop and enhance the abilities, talents, competencies, efficiency and qualifications of UGC employees to increase their capacity to serve the higher educational system in India,” said commission’s chairman Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar.

Training of UGC employees

In a step towards capacity building of staff, over 600 UGC employees were onboarded on iGot Karmayogi platform by September 15, 2023. In the first Quarter (October to December, 2023) 630 UGC employees successfully completed more than 4,500 courses with each employee completing an average of seven courses.

Moreover, during 2023, the commission also organized various offline or face-to-face training programmes on reservation in services, introduction to emerging technologies using AI, overview of Data-driven Decision Making (DDDM) using higher education data and relevant use cases, PFMS awareness of general financial rules, contract management and purchase of services, RTI etc. for its employees.

The commission said it plans to continue the practice to strengthen the capacity of its employees and support the government’s initiative of Mission Karmayogi for skill enhancement of government employees.

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ACBP has been derived from a robust capacity need assessment exercise that was conducted with UGC officials and staff over a period of six months starting from March last year, Kumar said.

The plan was officially launched today by professor Mamidala Jagdesh Kumar in the presence of R Balasubramanium, member HR, CBC. Last year, the commission met CBC to begin the process of creating the capacity building plan. UGC is the first autonomous organization to have started planning for the capacity building of its employees in collaboration with the Capacity Building Commission (CBC) which was established by the government on April 1, 2021.