Mumbai: Having announced earlier to not follow the Centre’s National Education Policy, Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government has set up an 18-member task force to make recommendations and study provisions. The task force, led by leading scientist Dr Raghunath Malshekar, consists of former chairman of University Grants Commission (UGC), serving and retired vice-chancellors and education experts, reported Free Press Journal.
AM Bawiskar, the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Higher and Technical Education, notified the formation of a task force. A report by the task force is expected within three months.
Among the proposed policies, detailed discourse on technical education, vocational education, student-centric and regional language education, has been stressed upon by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.
“We will have to see whether this policy will benefit the students in the state and radically change the education sector,” the CM was quoted as saying by the Free Press Journal.
Issues on the implementation of the New Education Policy, financial and physical limitations, faculty problems, and infrastructural changes of schools and colleges will be discussed by the task force with various stakeholders.
Due to the lack of a concrete arts, science and commerce stream, which would allow students to take up whatever they want, these issues warrant discussion.
This is the second instance of the formation of a task force by the Maharashtra government. The first task force, which was non-functional due to inconvenience, was formed under the chairmanship of former vice-chancellor of SNDT Women’s University Prof Vasudha Kamath, with former Mumbai University VC Dr Bhalchandra Mungekar as a member.