Karnataka SEP panel costitutes 30 task forces to address issues in education

The State Education Policy Commission (SEP) has decided to address several social and sensitive issues in higher and school education before submitting its final report to the government.

For this purpose, the Commission has constituted 30 theme-based task forces, 17 for higher education and 13 for school education and directed them to conduct a comprehensive study.

Following discussions during the meeting on March 14, the Commission issued an order constituting task forces and directed them to submit reports by second week of June. According to sources, the commission has to submit its final report by August. Hence, it has constituted these task forces and based on their reports, it will prepare the final report.

The Commission is trying to address/provide solutions for issues, like the medium of instruction, gender discrimination, learning process and mode of assessment, the structure of education institutions and educational attainment, dropouts, retention and transition in state, inequality for socially and economically disadvantaged groups etc, through the task forces. “Some issues are pending for several years and we need to address them,” said a source.

One of the task forces has been asked to study special problems of social groups related to discrimination, isolation and exclusion: caste, ethics, gender, religious affiliation and also children with special needs.

As per the order issued by the Commission, it is also considering including/suggesting a curriculum framework in its final report. This particular task force on curriculum framework, learning process and mode of assessment for school education will be headed by VC of Kuvempu University Dr Sharath Ananthamurthy.

While framing draft for National Education Policy (NEP), it can be recalled that even that committee had constituted several such groups, both at higher education and school education levels.