The Ranchi University (RU), which is gearing up to implement the Choice-Based Credit System (CBCS) from this academic year in all undergraduate (UG) courses, is yet to redesign several courses being taught at UG level as per the CBCS pattern.
Ironically, the varsity that is planning to implement the CBCS in all the UG courses has just prepared the syllabus for six general courses that includes Mathematics, Geology, English, Hindi, Psychology and Economics according to new marking system.
At present, more than 15 subjects are being taught in humanities stream while six core subjects comes under the Science stream. Commerce stream too have several business management and regular Honours subjects.
The responsibility to redesign subjects according to different module had been given to the Board of Studies members for all the UG courses a year ago but the deadline to draft the courses is yet to be fixed by the university administration. Keeping the three core benefits like mobility, flexibility and uniformity in syllabus at par with other universities, the syllabus has to be prepared as per the UGC norms by all the UG departments.
“All the principals have been instructed to upload the syllabus at the earliest on the university website. Seeking the requirements, the courses are being redesigned and some more time is required for this,” said RU Pro VC Dr Kamini Kumar.
As per the decision, the varsity will adopt CBCS from the session 2017-2020 for the first time in UG courses. In a recent meeting conducted with all college principals it has been unanimously decided that all the constituent and affiliated colleges under RU will adopt the system from this year in the presence of the existing resources only.
Considering the elaborate modules for each subject the university personnel have instructed all the principals especially to the head of the departments to prepare the syllabus under different subheads following the marking pattern. It has been made mandatory for all the department heads of all the courses to upload the syllabus details on university official website as well.
lack of trained faculty members and basic infrastructure including the elaborate components in marking scheme especially in non-academic assignments are few other major hurdles that will hinder the implementation of CBCS at graduation level.
“It is mandatory for the university to adopt the CBCS for UG courses. As far as, basic infrastructure and teachers are concerned, the university administration has planned to appoint UGC-NET qualified teachers for different stream subjects on contract basis. Advertisements are out and we are quite sure that in the existing resources, the university will be able to implement the CBCS system,” Kumar added.
Nevertheless, in unison, flexibility is required for merging the structure of the programmes by several colleges to go with the flow of local educational requirements for bachelors’ degree subjects. If the procedure is not implemented in a planned way, the grading pattern will be severely affected.
In the new marking system, courses will be covered under four sections which include discipline specific, generic specific, skill development and communication skill as a compulsory paper. For honours 140 credits has been fixed while for pass courses 120 credits have been decided.