Kasturirangan panel's draft national education policy by March

The HRD Ministry-appointed panel tasked with drafting a new National Education Policy will submit its report in March next year, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said here today.
"The committee had sought a three-month extension and we have granted them time till March 31, 2018," Javadekar told reporters.
Headed by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief K Kasturirangan, the panel was set up by the human resource development (HRD) ministry in June and it was supposed to submit its report this month.
The committee had sought the extension, saying it was still holding consultations with various stakeholders and needed time to prepare the final draft.

The existing National Education Policy was framed in 1986 and revised in 1992. A new National Education Policy was part of the manifesto of the BJP, which now governs the country.
Apart from Kasturirangan, the committee has eight members, including mathematician Manjul Bhargava and former IAS officer K J Alphonse.

The panel will also take into account the report of a panel headed by former cabinet secretary TSR Subramanian, formed by the HRD ministry during the tenure of Smriti Irani.
The TSR Subramanian panel submitted its report to the government in May 2016, suggesting measures to strengthen the education sector that caters to over 300 million students.

However, the government decided to have more consultations and use it as an "input" for the future draft and not as a final draft report, and set up the panel headed by Kasturirangan.
Kasturirangan headed ISRO between 1994 and 2003 and was awarded the country's second highest civilian honour -- Padma Vibhushan -- in 2000.