According to the UGC’s new guidelines, which will be made public on Wednesday, undergraduate and postgraduate students will soon be able to pursue two degrees at the same time. Students will be able to take two offline courses from the same or separate universities, as well as combine an offline course with an online or open and remote learning course.
UGC says this will enhance enrollment
“On actual campuses, we can only enroll 3% of students.” Open and distance learning, as well as online education, has advanced, and many colleges now offer these degrees. Mr. Kumar stated at a virtual press conference that the UGC has decided to establish recommendations that will allow students to pursue two academic degrees at the same time.
The guidelines, he said, would be released on Wednesday and will take effect during the school year 2022-2023. In the physical mode, a student can enroll in two full-time academic programs as long as their class schedules do not overlap.
Universities will have the freedom to choose whether or not to provide such a program. Only lecture-based courses, such as undergraduate, postgraduate, and diploma programs, will be covered by the standards. This system will not apply to MPhil and Ph.D. programs. Each university will define the eligibility criteria for various courses as well as admission regulations.
The UGC will notify educational establishments of the decision once the recommendations are made public, and they will have to approach their statutory authorities to have an academic ordinance enacted to follow the rules.
The decision is in line with the Ministry of Human Resource Development’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. “We are attempting to allow as much flexibility as possible under the NEP in order to provide holistic, integrated, and learner-centered education.” We expect that the new standards would provide students with enough opportunities to gain multidisciplinary learning across a wide range of fields,” Mr. Kumar added.
The NEP emphasizes “imaginative and flexible curricular structures” to allow creative combinations of disciplines and “engaging course options in addition to rigorous specialization in a subject,” as well as encouraging engineering students to learn arts and humanities subjects and arts students to learn science.