Mumbai: The Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government, which has already announced not to blindly implement the New Education Policy announced by the Centre, has set up an 18-member task force chaired by leading scientist Dr Raghunath Mashelkar to study its provisions and make recommendations. The task force consists of former chairman of University Grant Commission (UGC), serving and retired vice chancellors and education experts.
The task force is expected to submit a report in three months. The Deputy Secretary of the Department of Higher and Technical Education, AM Bawiskar, has issued the notification on the formation of a task force.
This is the second time the state government has set up the task force. The first such body was formed on September 18 under the chairmanship of former vice chancellor of SNDT Women’s University Prof Vasudha Kamath and former Mumbai University VC Dr Bhalchandra Mungekar as member and it did not become functional due to their inconvenience.
Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has already emphasised the need for in-depth discussions on technical education, vocational education, education in regional language and student-centric education among others of the proposed policy.
“We will have to see whether this policy will benefit the students in the state and radically change the education sector,” he viewed.
According to the government notification, the task force will discuss with various stakeholders the issues with regard to implementation of the New Education Policy, physical and financial constraints, changes in terms of additional infrastructure needed by colleges and schools and problems relating to faculty. These issues are important as the schools will not have any rigid streams of arts, commerce or science thereby allowing students to take up whatever courses they want.
