Which of the following organizations deals with ‘capacity building program’ on…

Concept — India's higher-education system distributes distinct mandates across its apex bodies: one frames school curriculum, syllabi and teacher training; one funds universities and determines standards in higher education; one assesses and accredits institutions for quality; and one exists as a national institute devoted to research, training and administrative capacity in the planning of education. A question of this kind is answered by matching the function named in the stem to the body whose charter is that function, not by how familiar the abbreviation is.

Application — The function named here is a capacity building programme on Educational Planning. NUEPA — the National University of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi — was created for precisely that remit. It is an autonomous institute of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, granted deemed-to-be-university status in 2006, and its Department of Training and Capacity Building in Education runs capacity building programmes in educational planning and administration for education officials of the Centre, the States and the Union Territories. (It was renamed NIEPA, the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, in 2017 — after this 2014 paper, so the 2014 wording NUEPA is the one used here.)

Cross-check — The mandates of the other three bodies lie elsewhere, which is what makes them near-misses rather than answers:

• NCERT — the National Council of Educational Research and Training (1961) — is the apex resource body for school education: national curriculum framework, school syllabi, textbooks and in-service teacher training.

• UGC — the University Grants Commission (1956) — is a statutory body that disburses grants to universities and colleges and coordinates and determines standards in higher education.

• NAAC — the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (1994, Bengaluru) — is an autonomous institution of the UGC that assesses higher-education institutions and awards them accreditation grades.

Result — the organisation associated with capacity building programmes on Educational Planning is NUEPA.