Savitribai Phule Pune University's (SPPU) credit based system is about to undergo a major overhaul especially for the students who are enrolled in the science course. According to the university, students in the university would now need fewer credits in order to earn the degrees. For the same purpose, a five member committee headed by Dr Saroj Ghaskadbi, professor of molecular biology at the department of zoology has been appointed.
N S Umrani, pro vice-chancellor of SPPU, said "the decision was taken at a recent meeting of the academic council. The meeting was about the University Grants Commission (UGC)'s latest directive to universities, asking them to compulsorily offer students five short courses, each of two credits."
“The two-credit courses are for five subjects, which students have to take compulsorily, like human rights and cyber security. Now, in our Science faculty, students already have to earn 100 credits for their degree. If we add these five courses, then it means a student has to get 110 credits, which becomes too much for them. Even now, students get no time for learning or going into a subject in depth. This does not leave much time for teachers either. Students of social sciences or commerce have to earn 64 credits, so it may not be so problematic for them,” said Ghaskadbi.
The academician added that when SPPU's existing credit based system is compared with the other leading universities such as Jawarharlal Nehru University, Banaras Hindu University or Delhi University, it is seen that criteria for credits at SPPU is far higher than other universities.
“At most Universities, the maximum credits a student has to earn is around 80. It differs from one university to another, somewhere it is 72, somewhere it is 76, but nowhere is it more than 80. Hence, it was thought that we need to revise the existing system. Our committee has the task of studying the choice-based credit system (CBCS) in SPPU and other universities and suggest what changes can be brought in. Also, while we may have the CBCS in principle, in practice, students are unable to seamlessly take courses across different faculties. That's because we have 52 departments that work on their set timetables and it may not be possible to re-shuffle timings to suit all. So we will also be looking at ways to suggest reasonable changes in the timetable,” she added.
Officials said that main task of the committee is to look for ways to bring down the total credits to be earned. “The committee has been asked to see how best we can create an ecosystem that makes it easier for students while also maintaining quality in instruction and evaluation. We are still gathering information on other universities,” said Umrani.