Acting Registrar Dinesh Kamble said the new initiative is a culmination of a workshop on Perspective Plan held last week.
In a first, the University of Mumbai will invite recommendations and suggestions from all stakeholders— teachers, students, principals and college management— for its five-year Perspective Plan.
According to the recently-amended Maharashtra Public Universities Act, 2016, non-agricultural universities have to submit a five-year Perspective Plan for approval to the State Council for Higher Education. The Act mandates that universities propose new courses and colleges along with the location within its jurisdiction depending on the demand for the courses. According to the Act, the universities must ‘keep in mind the needs of under-developed areas, to ensure equitable distribution of facilities for higher education’.
While the Perspective Plan is to be prepared by the board of deans, the university has set up a 38-member committee to invite, record and include the recommendations of all stakeholders in the plan. “We have decided to prepare questionnaires for each stakeholder. For instance, teachers will have to answer different questions than students and principals. These questionnaires will be made available on the website,” said a university official. “…This is the first time we will seek opinion from the students,” said the official.
Acting Registrar Dinesh Kamble said the new initiative is a culmination of a workshop on Perspective Plan held last week. “We had invited academicians, experts and planners, including those from IIT and the central government, to discuss on how to go about the Perspective Plan,” he said.