Jamia Millia Islamia Vice-Chancellor Najma Akhtar To Be Conferred With Padma Shri Today

The Government of India (GoI) selected Professor Najma Akhtar for the Padma Shri award for her invaluable contribution in the field of literature and education.

Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) Vice-Chancellor Professor Najma Akhtar will receive Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award of the country, from the President of India Ramnath Kovind on Monday, March 21. The award ceremony will be held at the Darbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan today. The Government of India (GoI) selected Prof Akhtar for the award for her invaluable contribution in the field of literature and education.

Prof Najma Akhtar has the distinction of being the first woman Vice-Chancellor of JMI-an institution accredited with A++ by the National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC) under her supervision in December last year. She is widely recognized as a leading educationist for having brought transformation in the delivery of quality education in premier educational institutions of the country.

Prof. Akhtar led JMI to bag 6th rank in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Ministry of Education (MoE). 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.

Born on November 13, 1953, Prof Akhtar received her PhD in Education on the topic 'A Comparative Study on Conventional & Distance Education System of Higher Education'. A gold medalist in her Master's, she holds an MA in Education and an MSc in Botany.