KCG: The Gujarat Government's initiative to achieve excellence in the state higher education

Knowledge Consortium of Gujarat (KCG) has been established by the Government of Gujarat in the year 2009, looking forward to provide a platform for reforms in the higher education. The aim of KCG is to design and implement various academic initiatives for achieving excellence in education, educational management and policy framing in the segment of state higher education. The broad vision of KCG is to achieve this objective through five different dimensions namely, (i) Education, (ii) Training and Capability Building, (iii) Research and Innovations, (iv) Extension and (v) Quality Assurance. To execute the vision, the governing body has been constituted which comprises of Principle Secretary, Higher and Technical Education (as the CEO of KCG), Joint CEO & Directors, and the coordinator. At advisory level, the committee of the consortium has included minister of education, directors of various national and state universities including IIMA and NID, industry experts including president of FICCI and other renowned academicians.

The present paper intends to study and analyze the KCG model, initiatives taken to achieve excellence and outcome achieved over the period of its first five years of establishment. The analysis will be carried out by contacting team of KCG executives and other available secondary sources of data.