From the academic session 2022-23, students will have the option to pursue two academic programmes simultaneously at the higher education level, the University Grants Commission (UGC) announced on Tuesday. Guidelines governing the policy will be issued on Wednesday, UGC chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar told a press conference, describing the move as being necessary to help students pick up a diverse range of skills. It will essentially allow students to simultaneously opt for two programmes at the undergraduate, diploma and postgraduate levels. Both degrees can be in physical mode, or one offline and another online, or both offline. But it will be optional for the universities to adopt these guidelines. What are the subject combinations that a student will be allowed to take up? Prof Kumar said the permitted combination of subjects will vary from one institution to another as different institutes set different criteria for admissions. He made it clear, however, that it will be possible for a student to pursue a degree in humanities and sciences at once, or two degrees falling in the same stream. For instance, if a student is already enrolled in a BSc mathematics degree and also wants to pursue a bachelor’s degree in History, she will be allowed to do so. If a university offers an offline BCom programme during the evening shift and a full-time BA programme during the morning shift, a student may enrol in both programmes. What are the possible combinations in terms of modes of study? The move allows a student to pursue two academic programmes, one in full-time physical mode, and another in open and distance learning mode. They can also join a programme in a physical mode in a university, along with another programme in an online mode.The third choice for students is that they can pursue two online degrees simultaneously. On the question of attendance, particularly in case of a student choosing the purely offline mode, Prof Kumar said that in such cases, students and colleges will ensure that class timings for one programme do not overlap with that of the other. Also, the guidelines will not apply to MPhil and PhD programmes. Students can only pursue a degree or diploma course in distance mode/online mode at institutions that have been approved by the UGC, and concerned bodies of the Government ofIndia. Will admission eligibility criteria and attendance requirements be revised? The eligibility criteria for each of the programmes will remain unchanged and admissions will be conducted based on the existing UGC and university norms. If a student aspires to pursue a specialised degree in any domain but the minimum criteria require her to have basic knowledge of the subject, then she may not be able to enrol in that particular course. But again, that will depend on the college or university in question. Since all academic programmes have minimum attendance requirements for students to be able to take the exams, universities may have to devise or revise the attendance criteria for these courses. “UGC does not mandate any attendance requirements and these are the policies of the universities,” Kumar said. How practical is the idea? Prof Kumar said the guidelines are part of implementation of the NEP which seeks to provide as much flexibility as possible so that students can receive multidisciplinary education. On the question of whether the proposed structure is practical, he said, “It of course depends on the capability of the student.” He acknowledged that for a student to pursue two degrees in offline mode will be difficult, but not impossible. “For example, if a student pursuing B Tech in IIT Delhi wants to study BA French in JNU in the evening, she can very well do that by just walking across the road,” he said. There are no practical difficulties if one of the two degrees is pursued online, he added. Newsletter | Click to get the day's best explainers in your inbox
