In an attempt to diversify the courses taught at Higher Education Institutions (HEI’s) in India, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has formulated guidelines which expresses its plan to encourage HEIs that will offer a plethora of subjects. On approval of the guidelines, a dual degree from both the IITs and JNU will become a possibility, stated UGC chairman Mr Jagadesh Kumar.
According to the ‘Draft Guidelines for Transforming Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) into Multidisciplinary Institutions’, with respect to the National Education Policy (NEP 2020), there will be at least one large multidisciplinary HEI in every district by 2030. Hence as soon as the draft gets approved as an official policy, HEI’s will have a number of ways in which they would be able to adjust with the multidisciplinary structure. Affiliated colleges can claim themselves to be degree awarding autonomous institutions by providing the above mentioned education.
University and colleges will also be able to collaborate to offer dual degrees. According to the guidelines, students once sanctioned admission will be able to complete the first degree at the host institution and the second degree at the partnering institution without having to go through the admission procedure. “For example, JNU and IIT Delhi have separate sets of intrinsic strengths. If a student pursuing BTech in IIT wants to study history in his Master’s in JNU, they should be able to do so without going through a separate admission process. For that, the two institutions need to collaborate. Hypothetically speaking, the eligibility criteria can be based on CGPA,” the chairman of UGC Mr Jagadesh Kumar claimed.
Indian universities have been losing out on world rankings for quite some time due to their nature of providing a single stream of education. The previous guidelines also prove the “debilitating or limiting effect on the evolution of research and innovation” as colleges are compelled to follow the syllabus outlined by the universities they are affiliated to. The new guidelines offer more autonomy to colleges by allowing them to form clusters, so that they can offer multidisciplinary education. “This will ensure that colleges with poor enrollment and fewer resources can offer multidisciplinary programmes and can have access to better facilities for the benefit of all,” stated the guidelines.
UGC in the coming years will identify and select colleges that can turn into excellent Institutions for multidisciplinary education. “Those institutions in turn will set the template for others across the country to follow,” informed UGC chairman, Mr Jagadesh Kumar.
