The Higher Education Review

Improving the status of education comes under the most requisite factor in India where statistics clearly point towards the staggering disparities in the educational levels in the country. Where one state has achieved a literacy rate higher than 90 percent while on the other hand,there also exist states like Arunachal Pradesh where the literacy rates are still dismal.

Recognizing this issue, Prof.Dhanwaant Singh came as a savior and initiated to setup Apex Professional University (APU)in Arunachal Pradesh, a non -profit university, in collaboration with the Government of Arunachal Pradesh, in 2013. Apex Foundation has its registered office at Bangalore, in southern India and Headquarters at Noida, NCR Region, New Delhi. “With a comprehensive development approach, the foundation’s mission is to work in remote regions of several states in India,”says Prof. Dhanwaant Singh, Founder Chancellor, Apex Professional University.

"We conducted research on which state is in need of higher education and subsequently it has been found that Arunachal Pradesh is a land which is yet to be explored. After this, the pledge has been taken accordingly to upgrade the literacy bar in the state through quality education," shares, Prof. Singh. The University is duly approved by Bar Council of India, New Delhi, Council of Architecture(CoA), New Delhi and is a member of Association of Indian Universities (AIU), New Delhi. The APU has also obtained no objection letter from the AICTE, New Delhi for conducting technical and management programme.

Owing to the excellence APU has demonstrated since its establishment, it was recognized and awarded as the 'Fastest Growing University'at the recently held India's Pioneer Education Award 2017. Targeting to achieve more laurels, APU has signed MoUs with IIT Kharagpur and IIT Bombay to access their library as well as for

faculty development programmes. Being one of the fastest growing innovative learning organizations, APU is engaged in high-quality,low-costand replicable interventions to address gaps in the education system.

The university offers a range of courses for the students covering various bachelor's, master's and PhD degrees in Law, Humanities, Social Sciences, Applied Sciences and so on. "We are on the verge to launch courses which are not been offered by any institution yet. The focus is more on Naturopathy and Yoga Science for which the process is already started with the consent of Ministry of Ayush," opines Prof. Singh. Among the 1000+ students getting enrolled annually, the large numbers of them mainly consist of Arunachal Pradesh including few from the other parts of Northeast.

Blend of Bloom's Taxonomy and Gurukul Method
Honored after Benjamin Bloom, Bloom's Taxonomy is in active practice by academicians abroad. Apparently, the mode adopts the objective of remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate and create to deliver the most holistic learning experience. Given in India, APU is amongst the first to introduce this method of teaching comprehending its tremendous popularity across the globe.

This teaching strategy, however, require integrating multiple disciplines apart from specializing in specific subjects, that is aptly undertaken by the team of 30 faculty members, maximum of them are PhD holders. The exemplary student-teacher ratio of 1:12 is also an attractive factor when comes to compare APU with other existing institutions in the region.

APU also boosts to merge Gurukul tradition in the teaching-learning culture along with Bloom's Taxonomy as the goal of the management is to confer balanced significance to the modern and traditional way of learning. "It is quite an innovative step we took keeping in account the demand of generating individual with high values along with substantial skills," pinpoints Prof. Singh.

Arunachal Pradesh being overspread by abundance of Mother Nature, the management encourages the students to learn from nature. "As it said nature is the best teacher, we are pretty fortunate to have our campus in a location where nature has immense offerings,"says Prof. Singh. Besides curricular, APU is distinctly concerned in co-curricular

activities, for which ample of workshops, science exhibition and guest lectures are organized in the premises. A youth festival 'Jalwa' is also held yearly, stimulating students from diverse institutions to participate in the same.

Exemplifying Efforts
Prof.Singh is not only improving the educational scenario of the area, he also took a supplemental shot to provide stipend to each and every student studying at APU with the help of the Arunachal Pradesh Government. "If calculated,the fees of our courses are comparably lesser and our students are only after paying 10-20 percent of the fees including scholarship and stipend,”claims Prof.Singh. Excluding this, there are numerous added assets for the learners studying at APU.

Situated in a place where most of the students belong to the scheduled tribe who are more inclined to Government jobs, as getting these jobs are easy for them on grounds of governmental norms for ST. APU understand the fact and offers free coaching to students for several competitive exams. "We are keen to outset counseling our students on the decision of coming out from their cocoon and touch the sky instead of prioritizing government jobs," says Prof. Singh.

Being in the early stage, APU is driven to be among the country's best university by the year 2020 through fostering wisdom and integrity. “We aspire to transform the lives of people in India through innovative and sustainable solutions and empower the youths through access to quality higher education,” concludes Prof. Singh.

Acharya Dhanwaant Singh, Founder Chancellor
Acharya Dhanwaant Singh, Alumni of IIM Ahmedabad, can be summarized in three simple words; Technologist by Education, Social Entrepreneur by Profession and Meta Physician by Passion. Acharya Dhanwaant Singh has over two decades of experience in Online Education and Vocational Training. As the Chairman of the Apex Group,he led its transformation from correspondence education into online education in the Indian University System. Prof. Singh, a self-made man, has consistently demonstrated his ability to identify new ideas and lead them on the path to success. He was responsible for guiding Apex Group through two decades of growth to finally emerge as one of the leading Private university in the country.