Guwahati: Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Monday called upon universities of the Northeast to move beyond conventional degree-oriented education and become “problem-solving institutions” capable of addressing the region’s developmental, social, environmental and strategic challenges.
Addressing the inaugural session of the two-day Roundtable of Vice-Chancellors of North-East Universities at the Rashtriya Raksha University (RRU) campus, Khandu said the first-ever such Vice-Chancellors’ Roundtable in Northeast India should lead to concrete institutional partnerships, actionable ideas and measurable outcomes rather than remain confined to deliberations.
The Roundtable, themed “Transforming Higher Education: Innovations, Collaborations and Strategies for a Future-Ready India,” brings together Vice-Chancellors, academicians, experts and representatives of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) and RRU.
Khandu said higher education has a particularly important role to play in a young, aspirational and geographically diverse state like Arunachal Pradesh.
“Our universities must prepare our young people not only for employment but also for entrepreneurship, innovation, research and public service, while nurturing them as responsible citizens,” he said.
He said higher education in Arunachal Pradesh must respond to the state’s distinctive realities, including frontier and border-area development, tribal communities, biodiversity, climate change, cultural preservation, rural livelihoods, tourism, connectivity and national security.
Calling for a change in the role of universities, Khandu said research must increasingly address real-life challenges faced by people.
“Universities should become laboratories where local challenges are converted into research questions and research outcomes are converted into practical solutions,” he said.
He encouraged universities to establish partnerships with state government departments, industries, defence and security establishments, local communities and civil society.
Areas identified for collaboration include sustainable agriculture, bamboo and cane, handloom and handicrafts, border-area development, disaster management, eco-tourism, renewable energy, indigenous knowledge and public health.
He also proposed district-level research and innovation partnerships that would enable students and faculty to work directly on community-level problems.
Khandu said universities must become early adopters of artificial intelligence and digital technologies rather than passive observers of the rapidly changing technological landscape. He proposed AI-enabled academic ecosystems for personalised learning, student assessment, research assistance, language technologies and administrative efficiency.
For Arunachal Pradesh, he said AI could have applications in remote education, multilingual learning, mapping of educational resources, disaster prediction, biodiversity monitoring and healthcare delivery.
The Chief Minister also called for joint digital repositories of indigenous knowledge, languages, oral traditions, traditional medicine, crafts and ecological practices, while ensuring community ownership and appropriate safeguards. Universities, he said, should share digital infrastructure, datasets, laboratories and expertise instead of each institution attempting to build everything independently.
Khandu said internationalisation of higher education should not be limited to sending students abroad, but should also involve bringing global knowledge, research partnerships, faculty collaborations and international exposure into universities of the Northeast.
He identified scope for international academic partnerships in climate science, biodiversity, Himalayan studies, tribal studies, disaster management, border studies and sustainable development.
He encouraged universities of the region to develop joint programmes and research partnerships with institutions in South and Southeast Asia, leveraging the Northeast’s strategic position under India’s Act East vision.
He also called for collective efforts to attract international scholars to the region and showcase the Northeast as a living laboratory for Himalayan ecology, indigenous knowledge and sustainable development.
Khandu urged Vice-Chancellors to prepare time-bound institutional transformation roadmaps with measurable indicators covering teaching quality, research, innovation, employability, international collaboration and community engagement. He said governance reforms must also recognise the special requirements of universities operating in remote, mountainous and border areas.
The Chief Minister encouraged the establishment of Centres of Excellence for Indigenous Knowledge and Tribal Studies, involving interdisciplinary research across anthropology, science, technology, environment and economics.
“Indigenous knowledge should not be treated merely as heritage. Wherever scientifically appropriate, it should be explored for contemporary applications and livelihood generation,” he said.
Khandu also called for a stronger university-based startup ecosystem, saying higher education institutions should become incubators of ideas and entrepreneurship rather than merely consumers of government employment.
He called for every university to develop an ecosystem connecting innovation, incubation, mentorship, seed funding, intellectual property and market access.
Arunachal Pradesh, he said, has considerable untapped entrepreneurial potential in tourism, agri-business, food processing, bamboo, handicrafts, textiles, clean energy, digital services and indigenous products.
He encouraged universities to establish incubation partnerships with state innovation institutions and industry so that student innovations could move from laboratories to the market, with special attention to women entrepreneurs and startups emerging from rural and tribal communities.
Referring to the presence of the Rashtriya Raksha University at Pasighat, Khandu described it as a strategic opportunity for Arunachal Pradesh and the wider Northeast.
He said the RRU campus could develop into a major regional centre for national security education, research and capacity building, with scope for collaboration with the State Police, Armed Forces, CAPFs, disaster management authorities, border-area institutions and private security organisations.
Potential areas of collaboration, he said, include border management, cyber security, drone technology, disaster response, forensic science, counter-terrorism studies, community policing and strategic studies.
Khandu proposed consideration of a Northeast Higher Education Consortium involving universities across the region for joint research, faculty exchange, student mobility, shared laboratories and common digital resources.
Such a consortium, he said, could identify a limited number of Northeast-specific priority research areas and enable institutions to collectively mobilise academic resources. It could also provide a common platform to showcase the academic capabilities of the Northeast nationally and internationally.
He welcomed RRU’s proposed engagement in areas such as community welfare, psychological well-being, mental health and village adoption as a potential model of university-community partnership.
Emphasising the need to translate deliberations into measurable action, Khandu suggested that each technical session identify one major challenge, three practical interventions, one lead institution and a clear implementation timeline.
He also proposed a mechanism for periodic review of recommendations emerging from the Roundtable and urged each participating Vice-Chancellor to identify at least two institutions with which their university could immediately establish a collaboration.
The Chief Minister proposed that the Vice-Chancellors’ Roundtable become an annual institutional process to ensure continuity in the dialogue and follow-up on decisions.
He reiterated the state government’s commitment to strengthening its partnership with RRU, AIU and universities across the Northeast for education, research, capacity building and community development.
The two-day Roundtable is expected to deliberate on strategies for transforming higher education in the Northeast through innovation, institutional collaboration, research, entrepreneurship, digital transformation and stronger linkages with society and the economy.