CBCS: Towards excellence in higher education

Sucharita SahooIndia has emerged as a global leader.World’s perception is changing about India. We have the human resource to achieve success in any field and education is the key force behind it.The present time demands skill and knowledge to meet the demands of the job market.According to 2011 census India’s literacy rate is 73% but still unemployment problem is there in our country.To make people self employed and industry ready there is a need to impart requisite skills among the students so that they can survive in the competitive market scenario.The University Grants Commission has initiated several measures to bring efficiency and excellence in the higher education system.The UGC has formulated various guidelines to improve the quality of higher education in the country.The UGC is constantly persuading the universities to introduce academic reforms like introduction of semester system, Choice Based Credit System (CBCS).UGC has issued guidelines for CBCS.The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of Higher Education convened a meeting of all State Education Ministers looking after Higher education/Technical education, on 6th January 2015, to discuss adoption of the Credit Framework for skills and Choice Based Credit system in Colleges and State Public Universities.The meeting was chaired by Union Minister of Human Resource Development Smriti Zubin Irani.Ministers from all the states endorsed the Credit Framework for skills and the new Choice Based Credit system guidelines issued by the UGC recently.The Choice Based Credit system opens up possibilities for students pursuing skills and courses of their choices to enhance their employability.It is expected that Choice Based Credit system will help in enhancing the skill of students in under graduate and post graduate level.The Choice Based Credit system provides choice for students to select from the prescribed courses (core, elective or minor or soft skill courses).The Choice Based Credit system provides a ‘cafeteria’ type approach in which the students can take courses of their choice, learn at their own pace, undergo additional courses and acquire more than required credits, and adopt an interdisciplinary approach to learning.Courses in a programme may be of three kinds like Core, Elective and Foundation.There may be a core course in every semester.This is the course which is to be compulsorily studied by a student as a core requirement to complete the programme.Elective course is a course which can be chosen from a pool of papers.It may be supportive to the discipline of study, providing an expanded scope, enabling an exposure to some other discipline, nurturing the student’s proficiency.An elective may be generic elective focusing on those courses which add generic proficiency to the students.An elective may be Discipline centric or may be chosen from an unrelated discipline.It may be called an Open elective.The Foundation courses may be of two kinds, compulsory foundation and elective foundation.Compulsory foundation courses are the courses based upon the content that leads to knowledge enhancement.They are mandatory for all disciplines.Elective foundation courses are value based.The system provides flexibility in designing curriculum and assigning credits based on the course content and hours of teaching.There will be clear cut identification of duration of teacher student engagement.As per UGC regulation, in a semester there has to be a minimum of 90 teaching days for learner teacher engagement.The UGC recommends a 10 point grading system.It aims at removing all variations across colleges and universities in the methods applied for award of grades.The Choice Based Credit system is a student centric education reform.It is expected there will be more student participation in the academics.Because in this system there is an option for the student to decide his pace of learning, it is his choice of paper and he can learn more through projects, team work without sacrificing his creativity and interest.(PIB Feature)