NEW DELHI: Professor Hrushikesh Senapaty has been appointed as the Director of National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT), here on Monday. Prior to the appointment, he served as the principal of Regional Institute of Education (RIE), Bhopal (a constituent unit of NCERT).
As an alumnus of the BJB College Bhubaneswar and Devi Ahilya Bai University, Indore, Senapaty served as an associate professor at the Regional Institute of Education, Bhopal in 1997. He then moved to Regional Institute of Education, Bhubaneswar as a professor, and eventually returned to the Regional Institute of Education, Bhopal as its principal in 2012.
Prof. Senapaty has specialized in information and communications technology in education (ICTE) and teacher education. Carrying more than 25 years of experience in teaching, research and training, he is a UNESCO expert in ICTE in India. He has been visiting many countries for working in the ICTE domain. In addition, he has worked on inculcating ICTE into Constructivist Theory of Learning, to transform the methodology of teaching.
The Director's seat has been vacant for almost a year, after a cold-hearted ouster of Pravin Sinclair. Names of Prof Senapaty and Prof Anil Shukla were shortlisted by the committee headed by Md. Akhtar Siddiqui on August 24.
The members of the search committee included G C Tripathi, vice-chancellor, Banaras Hindu University, I K Bhat, director, NIT, Jaipur, Shyama Chona, former principal, DPS, RK Puram and M K Sridhar, professor, Canara Bank School of Management Studies (CBSMS) and member of Karnataka Knowledge Commission.
Prof Senapaty has been immediately tasked with reviewing certain crucial elements of the New Education Policy. Also, he shall need to revisit the school text books for revamping the curriculum framework. The NCERT curriculum was last revised a decade back in 2005.