Karnataka State Education Policy Commission fails to meet final report submission deadline

Commission for State Education Policy, led by Prof. Sukhdev Thorat, delays report submission, casting doubt on implementation by 2025-26.

The Commission for the State Education Policy (SEP), headed by Prof. Sukhdev Thorat, which was supposed to submit its final report to the Karnataka government by February, has missed the deadline with the end of March approaching. In fact, it has not even submitted a request to the government yet for the extension of term required for submission of the report.

Sources said that the submission of the report may be delayed by a couple of months and it is doubtful that the SEP will be implemented in the State from the academic year 2025-26.

As per its manifesto for the 2023 Assembly elections, the Congress government decided to withdraw the National Education Policy (NEP-2020) and constituted a separate Commission headed by eminent educationist and former Chairman of University Grant Commission (UGC) Prof. Thorat to formulate a State Education Policy on October 12, 2023.

The Commission constituted 30 theme-based task forces, including 17 for higher education and 13 for school education, to comprehensively study and submit reports on different aspects of education in the State.

The Commission had announced that the SEP report will be submitted to the government within five months, i.e. by the end of February 2024, and again by the end of April 2024. However, the Commission submitted an interim report to the government in May 2024, and said that the final report would be submitted by August 2024.

Following the recommendations of the interim report, the State government withdrew the four-year honours degree, which was part of the NEP, from the academic year 2024-25. Instead, it reinstated the three-year degree programmes which existed until the 2021-22 academic year. Other measures were also taken, including cancelling the multi-entry and multi-exit system.

The Commission, which failed to submit its final report in August, had submitted a request to the government in September 2024, seeking an additional time of six months. The government, which accepted this request, had given time till February 2025 to submit the report, which did not happen.