Mumbai: The University of Mumbai (MU) plans to promote skill-based courses and institutes in place of the traditional Arts-Science-Commerce colleges in the upcoming years.
On Monday, the varsity's highest decision-making body, the senate, in a special meeting held on Monday, approved MU's five-year perspective plan from the academic year 2024-25 to 2028-29. The plan pushes for providing vocational education to students according to their needs as envisaged under the National Education Policy 2020.
The perspective plan, which comes days after MU's new Vice Chancellor Dr Ravindra Kulkarni assumed charge, provides a blueprint for starting new institutes and academic programmes in the geographical area under the varsity's jurisdiction in the next five years. The varsity will further prepare detailed yearly plans based on this long-term agenda.
The plan lists around 60 trades and professions for which the university intends to train students. These include new-age skills such as Cloud Computing, Block Chain Management, Data Tracking, Data Warehousing and Data Management, as well as traditional vocations such as Textile, Handloom, Cooking-Baking, Horticulture, Gardening and Nursery and Handicraft. A number of niche courses related to Warehousing and Supply Chain, Agriculture and Real Estate are also on offer.
In the plan, the university administration has also proposed geographical area-wise slots for new institutes according to the specific socio-economic conditions, industrial requirements, and demography of the specific regions. in addition to skill development institutes, MU has also outlined plans for setting up night and women's colleges as well as the university satellite centres across seven districts, namely Mumbai, Mumbai Suburban, Thane, Palghar, Ratnagiri, Raigad and Sidhudurg, where the varsity has jurisdiction.
