University Blues: Flexible Academic Guidelines May Be Open to Abuse
Sukanta Chaudhuri | 03 February 2025 | The Telegraph
University Grants Commission has relentlessly dug up the soil around its roots. The four-year bachelor’s programme, launched and soon withdrawn once earlier, has been reimposed throughout the country. The new curriculum should be planned as an integral whole. Yet most universities have commenced first year classes without thinking through the subsequent course content.
This lack might be made good over time. More organically problematic is the structure of the programme. In the old system, the main honours subject occupied eight of the dozen or so papers and carried greatest weight in assessment. This was rightly criticized as limiting the student’s horizon from the start. In its over-anxiety to redress the balance, the new programme has plunged to the other extreme. Now a student need only obtain 50% credits from her major subject. If she chooses a double major, the less than lucid explanation indicates that another 40% must relate to the second subject — that is, covering even less ground…