A new committee has been established to carry out targeted planning for the Aurangabad, Nagpur, and Amravati regions as the Maharashtra government pushes for college clustering, encouraged by the National Education Policy (NEP). On Monday, the Maharashtra Department of Higher and Technical Education released a Government Resolution (GR) addressing this. Dr. Vijay Joshi, senior advisor for the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA), Mumbai, is the chairman of the five-person committee.
This clustering of colleges is encouraged with the goal of providing multidisciplinary higher education so that colleges in the same area that offer both single and multiple streams will be able to work together to give students flexible academic options. Given that they can select from a list of courses offered at both the parent and partner institutes, students should be able to pursue a combination of courses of their choosing because of clustering. The three regions are the committee’s primary focus because the government has received proposals from nearby educational institutions.
The committee will be in charge of reviewing various proposals the government has received asking for the formation of college clusters in the three regions and preparing a road map and guidelines for the same, the GR states. Along with the creation of new courses, necessary modifications to the current ones and the process of academic exchange between the various participating institutions will also be recommended.
The panel will act as a mediator between the clusters and the affiliated university as well as the government in addition to advising the interested institutions on their path toward clustering of colleges.
