The Commission drafting the State Education Policy (SEP), that was expected to submit its report in August, has now sought six more months and said they will submit the report in February 2025.
Minister of Higher Education M.C. Sudhakar confirmed to The Hindu that the SEP Commission had sought extension of their tenure by six more months. However, the Minister said that the State government was yet to decide whether to give the Commission more time or not.
The Congress had promised to reject the National Education Policy - 2020 and draft a SEP if it came to power in its manifesto for the 2023 Assembly elections. After it came to power, the party-led State government formed the SEP Commission headed by educationist and former UGC chairman Sukhdev Thorat on October 11, 2023, and set a five months’ deadline to submit its report.
However, the commission missed two deadlines in February and April 2024 and submitted an interim report in May 2024. Based on its interim recommendations, the State government dropped the four-year degree honours course and multiple entry and exits from courses, which were prominent features of NEP-2020.
The SEP Commission constituted 30 theme-based task forces, including 17 for higher education and 13 for school education, to comprehensively study and submit reports on different aspects of education in the State. A review of these task force reports is scheduled for September 10, 11, and 12. Only after brainstorming over these reports, drafting of the final report will even begin, a member of the Commission said.
While the Commission has held stakeholders meetings regarding higher education, it is yet to hold similar meetings on primary education. The meetings will be held in the coming weeks and inputs will be factored in while drafting the final report. This process is likely to take over two months and this is said to be one of the major causes of delay, a members said.
Published - September 04, 2024 11:50 pm IST
