University Grants Commission (UGC) wants to have 70% uniformity in curriculum for all universities for its undergraduate courses. It seems that it is on the verge of making changes as it also introduced a choice based credit system (CBCS) for undergraduate courses.
On December 2015, UGC issued a circular to state, central and deemed universities stating that CBCS all universities need to adopt CBCS. Also, 70% uniformity needs to be implemented by all universities. This suggestion by UGC would help in seamless mobility of students and will also help higher educational institutions in the country to mutually recognize students.
70 % conformity would mean that a university should design its UG course by having 70% content from UGC curriculum and rest 30% it can have its own. For example- According to UGC, BA English students have Writing Skills as a subject, which covers documenting, report writing, making notes and letter writing so, a university needs to adopt it, however, and it can have technical writing instead of letter writing. This move of UGC has received a lot of reactions from universities, some good and some bad.
According to GK Prabhu, former registrar of Manipal University and present director of Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT), UGC's this move s incorrect as CBCS is giving flexibility, however 70% uniformity would curb the freedom of universities to design their own curriculum.
Contrary to this, KN Ninge Gowda, registrar of Bangalore University (BU), said that 70% uniformity would ensure equality of education among students and quality of education would be same with all. In consultation with various stakeholders, UGC has announced a detailed syllabus as a template for 107 UG courses in order to help universities in implementing CBCS.
The pro-chancellor of PES University, Jawahar Doreswamy said that they look towards following the curriculum of top institutes like IITs although they are in uniformity presently in different programmes among different institutions. He suggested UGC's move to help students who get transferred from one institute to another.
The vice-chancellor of Reva University, VG Talwar added that the curriculum designed by UGC is relevant and good but it can be changed/edited. This can be done every two or three years to avoid outdated curriculum.
All in all UGC's move seems to be promising as it states to bring standardization, however, it is contradictory to credit system implemented by all universities. So, universities won't have any freedom with them to design curriculum for their courses and premier ones will become ordinary.
Tags: Ugc
Undergraduate Courses
Universities
Cbcs
Choice Based Credit System
