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Tag: Courses

  • UGC Committee To Grant ‘Degree’ Status To Several New Courses: Report

    UGC Committee To Grant ‘Degree’ Status To Several New Courses: Report

    Indian institutes of higher education may soon be provided degree-level courses in unconventional courses like public policy, wellness, Indian knowledge systems, etc. University Grants Commission (UGC) will soon set up a committee that will identify academic programs that can be converted to ‘degree Status courses, according to a report by the Economic Times (ET).

    Currently, India has 130 degree courses notified by the UGC in the UGC Act, 1956. With the latest changes, Indian universities may soon provide courses similar to foreign universities including BA in engineering disciplines and others.

    It will also allow foreign universities to set up their campuses in India and provide the same courses they provide in their home countries.

    The UGC has a certain nomenclature for degrees. However, the time has come for us to be more flexible. We need diversity in our programmes. Today, say if a university wants to offer a master’s in public policy, it is not able to do so under the current provisions. Our main idea is that we at UGC should be able to allow it to happen. There are also many internationally recognised degrees and it makes little sense to not recognise them in India. There has to be some mechanism of doing so,

    UGC Chairman M Jagadeesh Kumar Told ET.

    IIMs in India have run into trouble several times in the past with the specification of their MBA courses not matching UGC’s definition of degree courses. IIMs provide diplomas instead of degrees.

    The panel will also hold timely reviews on the existing courses and suggest new ones, the report added. Several Indian courses on traditional knowledge systems and mental health may also be soon granted a degree status.

    “We will set up a committee which will consider both our existing nomenclature and global ones and introduce some kind of flexibility. While existing nomenclature is likely to stay, we may finetune it and set up a system to evaluate new degree course proposals,” Kumar added.

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  • Over 23,000 Higher Education Courses To Be Made Available For Free: UGC

    Over 23,000 Higher Education Courses To Be Made Available For Free: UGC

    Over 23,000 higher education courses, including programmes on Artificial Intelligence, cyber security and early childhood care, will now be available free of cost on a new web portal, the University Grants Commission (UGC) said on Thursday.

    The portal, which aims at bridging the digital divide and enhance the accessibility of higher education in remote parts of the country, will be launched on Friday as part of the second anniversary of the National Education Policy 2020.

    The UGC has tied up with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to integrate the e-resources with their over 7.5 lakh Common Service Centres (CSC) and Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) Centres to offer these courses from the forthcoming academic session of 2022-23.

    “As part of its efforts in making higher education accessible to all, the UGC has been constantly working in making digital resources available to students in English as well as regional languages,” UGC Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar said.

    The CSCs aim is to provide digital access and make e-governance services available to the citizens especially those who are living in rural India at their doorstep.

    Nearly 2.5 lakh CSCs and SPVs are operating in Gram Panchayats and more than 5 lakh CSCs/SPVs centres are functional across the country.

    The CSCs and SPVs are being managed and operated by entrepreneurs who belong to the local community and are referred to as village-level entrepreneurs (VLEs). VLEs operate the centres to earn their living by delivering online services. These centres have computers and internet connectivity,

    Said Kumar.

    The courses include 23,000 postgraduate courses, 137 SWAYAM MOOC courses in emerging areas and 25 non-engineering SWAYAM courses. There are no charges for accessing these on the UGC portal.

    “All courses are free. However, for availing of the services and infrastructure of CSC/ SVP, a user has to pay a fee of Rs 20 per day or Rs 500 per month to reimburse the VLE’s efforts and cost of their infrastructure,” said Kumar.

    “This is similar to other government projects like Ayushman Bharat Yojana, PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana, e-Shram, Pan Card, Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maandhan Yojana (PMSYM) and many others, Kumar added.

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  • DU Admission Big Update: University To Put Out Special Cut-Off List for UG Courses

    DU Admission Big Update: University To Put Out Special Cut-Off List for UG Courses

    We have some important news for the candidates who are looking for admission to Delhi University. The varsity will release a cut-off list under a special drive to fill vacant seats in different colleges on Wednesday. According to the officials, the university has asked for the data of the vacant seats from the college on Saturday.

    Some colleges have not yet sent the data, said an official, adding that the institutions can send in the numbers by 1 pm on Wednesday. Before this, Delhi University had announced a cut-off under a special drive on November 13. The university had not shared the admission data for the list.

    Till the fifth cut-off, 74,667 students had secured admission. The colleges will release a merit list and approve candidates on the basis of vacant seat candidates can apply under the second special drive on November 25 and 26. The colleges will release the merit list on their website and candidates will have time from November 27 to 5 pm on November 30 to make payments.

    Candidates who could not seek admission or had canceled their admission in any of the colleges of the university during any of the preceding cut-offs and were, therefore, not admitted but meet any of the preceding cut-offs and special drive-I, may be considered for admission under the special drive-II, provided seats are available in the said.

    Category, according to the guidelines

    There will be no movement allowed during the special drive. Candidates who have secured admission in any of the earlier five cutoffs (including Special cut-off/drive-I) will not be allowed to participate in the Special Drive – II, which means candidates who are already admitted to any Program College of the University of Delhi will not be eligible to participate in the special drive. Hence, cancellation options for candidates will be suspended during the special drive.

    The university said

    In case the number of candidates applying for a particular program in a college is more than the number of seats available, colleges will make a merit list as per the best of four/three required for the program. The college will approve the candidature only on the basis of merit and availability of seats. The list of approved candidates will be uploaded on the respective college website, stating the guidelines.

    In case of a tie for a seat, the candidate with a higher percentage of marks (aggregate of best five subjects including one language) in the qualifying examination will be considered first for admission.

    The candidate with the earlier date of birth (as mentioned in the Class 10 certificate) will be considered for admission, in case of a tie.

    According to Manish Kansal, admission convener at Hindu College, there are hardly eight to 10 vacant seats at the college. Rajesh Dwivedi, an admission convener at Aryabhatta College, said the decline in the minimum required marks will be in the range of four to five percent.

    “There is no fear in reducing the cut-offs since there is no danger of over-admissions. If there are four vacant seats, we can admit four students and in case there are more applicants, we will take out a merit list. The final decision will be taken on Wednesday on the decline,” he added.

    Hem Chand Jain, principal of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College, said that they are likely to reduce the asking marks by one percent. He said that there are 11 vacant seats for the general category in different courses, 22 for OBC and 10 for ST. In the last special drive, there were 21 admissions at the college, he said.

    The new academic session for the first-year students has already commenced on November 22.

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