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TAKE TWO
What the article is about?
- Talks about the merits and concerns regarding the recent UGC guidelines of pursing two degrees simultaneously.
Syllabus: GS-II Education; Higher education
Two degrees simultaneously:
- The University Grants Commission has for the first time decided to allow students to pursue two full-time and same-level degree programmes in physical mode simultaneously either at the same university or from different universities.
- This move is a part of the implementation of the National Education Policy 2020 which seeks to provide as much flexibility as possible so that students can receive multidisciplinary education.
- From the academic session 2022-23, students will have the option to pursue two academic programmes simultaneously at the higher education level.
- It will essentially allow students to simultaneously opt for two programmes at the undergraduate, diploma and postgraduate levels.
- It will not be mandatory for any university or a council to adopt these guidelines.
- The UGC has proposed a three-way choice involving a combination of offline only; offline with distance mode; and distance/online only modes for dual programmes.
- The UGC has done well to mandate that open/distance learning and online mode courses should be pursued only in higher education institutions recognised by statutory bodies.
- This would also eliminate dubious players in the online education segment.
Concerns:
- The UGC has said a student can also pursue two full-time programmes in physical mode.
- This is problematic as it might prompt students, who are academically proficient or with the economic wherewithal, to corner seats in two in-demand courses.
- Such a situation is best avoided in the context of the country’s poor college density — colleges per lakh population (in the 18-23 age group).
- In the All India Survey on Higher Education Report 2019-20, the national aver- age college density stands at 30.
- The UGC’s Furqan Qamar Committee, which a decade ago recommended dual programmes with a second degree in open/distance mode, had ruled out offering simultaneous degree courses under regular mode “as it may create logistic, administrative and academic problems”.
Conclusion
- The NEP talks about encouraging engineering students to also learn arts and humanities subjects and students of arts to learn science and emphasises “imaginative and flexible curricular structures” to allow creative combinations of different disciplines and “engaging course options in addition to rigorous specialisation in a subject.”
