New Delhi: India’s higher education institutions will start offering the four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP), which has been mentioned in the new National Education Policy (NEP), from 2021 academic session, and the Ministry of Education has started working towards it, ThePrint has learnt.
Senior officials in the ministry said the plan will move forward by developing a ‘credit bank’ for students’ academic credits, which will facilitate the four-year undergraduate programme, and introduction of the multiple entry and exit option. The ‘credit bank’ will be an academic repository of a student’s credits that they have earned in college.
Under the multiple entry-exit option, a student will be allowed to leave the programme any time he or she wants to and resume whenever possible. The credits scored in the ‘credit bank’ will let the student resume from where they left.
On completing one year of the undergraduate programme, a student will get a certificate. Completing two years of the programme will make them eligible for a diploma, three years will get them a degree and four years will get them a four-year degree, which will further make them eligible for a one-year Masters degree or a PhD admission if their last year includes research work.
“The ministry has already started working on the credit bank and a test run will be done by December this year. Following this, by the year 2021, universities that have the willingness and the infrastructure will be able to offer four-year undergraduate programmes,” a senior official said.
The new programme will be offered to those who start their graduation in the year 2021. Others who are already enrolled in an existing graduation programme will be allowed to continue with that programme.
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Universities that will start offering the 4-year course
During a discussion on the way forward for NEP, organised by FICCI Monday, Higher Education Secretary Amit Khare mentioned the ‘credit bank’.
“The plan is to operationalise the ‘credit bank’ by the year 2021 and also offer four-year degree courses, to start with, in the Institutes of Eminence (IoEs),” he said.
“Work on the credit bank has already started… We have discussed it with some of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). Since we already have a solid Aadhaar base and digilocker, this can be linked and we will ensure a robust mechanism,” Khare added.
Initially, the 20 IoEs and some of the central universities will start the four-year programme, and offer the multiple entry and exit option, ministry officials said.
There are 10 public and 10 private institutions in the country that have been declared IoEs by the government. Some of them include the IITs in Delhi and Mumbai, the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and O.P. Jindal University, among others.
The NEP was approved by the cabinet last month and there have been discussions regarding its implementation ever since.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the education ministry and various stakeholders to hold as many discussions on the policy as possible, and come up with a road map to implement it in its truest essence.
He said this during his virtual address to vice-chancellors of more than 1,000 universities on 7 August.
Officials in the ministry said establishing a credit bank is one of the first steps towards effective implementation of the policy.
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