Absence of coordination among varsities hampers sharing of subjects.Institutions suffering due to shortage of staff

Nellore: Though the University Grants Commission issued guidelines for implementing Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) and Credit Framework for Skill Development (CFSD) in all educational institutions across the country, there has been no clarity on how various departments of a college or colleges of various universities share subjects according to choice of the student.

The University Grants Commission issued directions on January 8 asking varsity Vice-Chancellors to follow CBCS and CFSD after conducting a meeting with the State Education Ministers and Principal Secretaries on the system that enables seamless mobility of students across the institutions. In fact, the CBCS is also one of the main criteria set by the UGC and also a prerequisite if an institution wants to get NAAC grading.

Apprehensions were also fuelled among the faculty members of many institutions as they felt that the existing infrastructure and staff strength in colleges was not sufficient to introduce such a system.  Because, if an engineering student who wants to pursue some subject from Arts and Humanities like fine arts, he/she should be allowed, according to the new pattern.

But, some popular institutions in the State were not having such traditional courses and there is no agreement between these and other deemed universities for sharing such subjects and the UGC has also not issued any guideline. A senior official from the state HRD department said, “There should be such facility for sharing subjects among varsities respecting their own patterns and principles. Presently, we don’t have such coordination among varsities or colleges and this has to be addressed.”

Semesterisation of curricula, restructuring of syllabus in the form of modules, standardisation of examinations, and switching-over from numerical marking system to grading is being gradually done but should be wholistic, he added. A State university can share subjects of a private or deemed varsity and vice versa for comprehensive implementation of the programme without any barriers as systems of both institutions may surely be different. As part of the efforts, many new varsities have quickly been switching over to the new pattern for securing approval from the UGC for different courses.