Jamia VC Najma Akhtar to be conferred with Padma Shri on Monday

New Delhi, March 20

Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) Vice Chancellor Prof Najma Akhtar will receive Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award of the country from President of India Ram Nath Kovind at a Ceremony to be held at the Darbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Monday.

The government selected her for the award for her invaluable contribution in the field of literature and education.

The Jamia administration said that the video of the ceremony would be available on Padma Awards portal.

Prof Akhtar has the distinction of being the first woman Vice-Chancellor of JMI -- an institution accredited with A++ by National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC) in December, 2021.

She is widely recognised as a leading educationist for having brought transformation in the delivery of quality education in premier educational institutions of the country.

Jamia has bagged 6th rank in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Ministry of Education(MoE).

An official statement of the university said that under her leadership the university also achieved outstanding performance by securing 95.23 per cent score among all central universities in a performance evaluation done by the Ministry of Education for the year 2019-20.

She has worked as Professor and was the Head, Department of Training & Capacity Building in Education at National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), New Delhi. She worked in the Distance Education Programme at IGNOU, New Delhi and was the Founder Director of the State Director of the State Institute of Educational Management and Training (SIEMAT) at erstwhile Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. 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.