RUSA

Rashtriya Uchchattar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) is a holistic scheme of development for higher education in India initiated in 2013 by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. The centrally sponsored scheme aims at providing strategic funding to higher educational institutions throughout the country. Funding is provided by the central ministry through the state governments and union territories (UT), which in coordination with the central Project Appraisal Board will monitor the academic, administrative and financial advancements taken under the scheme.

Objectives
RUSA aims to provide equal development to all higher institutions and rectify weaknesses in the higher education system. Its target achievement is to raise the gross enrolment ratio to 32% by the end of XII Plan in 2017. The major objectives are to:

1. Improve the overall quality of existing state institutions by ensuring that all institutions conform to prescribed norms and standards and adopt accreditation as a mandatory quality assurance framework.
2. Ensure academic and examination reforms in the higher educational institutions.
3. Enable conversion of some of the universities into research universities at par with the best in the world.
4. Create opportunities for states to undertake reforms in the affiliation system in order to ensure that the reforms and resource requirements of affiliated colleges are adequately met.
5. Ensure adequate availability of quality faculty in all higher educational institutions and ensure capacity building at all levels of employment.
6. Create an enabling atmosphere in the higher educational institutions to devote themselves to research and innovations.
7. Expand the institutional base by creating additional capacity in existing institutions and establishing new institutions, in order to achieve enrolment targets.
8. Correct regional imbalances in access to higher education by facilitating access to high quality institutions in urban and semi-urban areas, creating opportunities for students from rural areas to get access to better quality institutions and setting up institutions in un-served and underserved areas.
9. Improve equity in higher education by providing adequate opportunities of higher education to SC/STs and socially and educationally backward classes; promote inclusion of women, minorities, and differently abled persons.