Lectures in Maharashtra’s degree colleges may have their lecture duration extended to one hour from the next academic session. The duration of lectures that are held for 48 minutes at present, is likely to be increased by 12 minutes in adherence to the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 credit system framework.
The governor of Maharashtra, Bhagat Singh Koshyari, chaired a meeting of vice-chancellors on Thursday to assess the preparedness of public universities for the implementation of NEP 2020. In the review meeting, the governor stressed that while it is crucial to conduct examinations, declare results, and start the new academic session on time as per the education policy, it is also important for the vice-chancellors to “lead the Universities from the front and shape the character of students.”
The move to change the duration of lectures to one hour was one of the issues discussed in the meeting. However, the increase in lecture duration has not been finalized yet. An official said that the vice-chancellors were positive about the change and more inputs have been sought from them, reported a leading news daily. The official added that a NEP steering committee has been formed under the supervision of Nitin Karmalkar, vice-chancellor of Pune University, to visit the universities and carry out extensive discussions with stakeholders.
Besides the lecture duration, the review meeting discussed uniformity in credit equivalence in universities, the use of e-Samarth, development of learning management software for all state public universities, and the development of Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in Marathi among others.
The minister of higher and technical education, Chandrakant Patil emphasized the need to complete the examination process in time. He asked the vice-chancellors to conduct all examinations by May 31 and declare the results by June 30. He added that the entrance tests and admissions should be held by July 31 to start the new academic session from August 1 without any delay. The minister also highlighted the enrolment of students in higher education and said that universities must set their targets to increase the enrolment in a phased manner from the present 32 lakh to 50 lakh students.
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