Hrushikesh Senapaty is the New NCERT Director

Professor Hrushikesh Senapaty, who was the head of Regional Institute of Education (RIE), Bhopal, has joined as director of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), recently. RIE was a constituent unit of NCERT, which was till date headed by Mr. Senapaty. He is an alumnus of BJB College Bhubaneswar and Devi Ahilya Bai University, Indore.

Hrushikesh joined the RIE in the year 1997 as an associate professor of education. He rose on to become a professor in RIE Bhopal and ended up as Principal there in 2012. He has been active in the field of teaching education and Information and Communication Technologies in Education (ICTE). He has also chaired as an UNESCO expert on ICTE, representing India. With more than 25 years of teaching, training and research experience he has visited many countries for working on the area of ICTE as UNESCO expert. 

Pravin Sinclair was ousted from the NCERT director chair last year and since then the chair was lying vacant. Mr. Senapaty and Anil Shukla were shortlisted to hold the chair in a search-cum-selection committee, which was headed by Md. Akhtar Siddiqui. The committee had GC Tripathi, VC of Banaras Hindu University, IK Bhat, Director of NIT, Jaipur, Shyama Chona, former Principal of DPS RK Puram and M K Sridhar, Professor of Canara Bank School of Management Studies as members. The committee also had members from the Karnataka Knowledge Commission, who voted for Senapaty to become the new Director of NCERT.

The newly appointed Director of the NCERT would have to immediately look forward to accelerate the consultation process in forming the New Education Policy. The body has been given responsibility to carry forward few crucial components of the newly announced policy. Mr. Senapaty has to review the text books and formulate a new curriculum framework for the schools running under NCERT syllabus.