HEIs offering online, distance learning courses must create students' Academic Bank of Credit IDs: UGC

NEW DELHI: Higher education institutions offering courses in the online and distance learning modes will be mandatorily required to create Academic Bank of Credit (ABC) IDs of its students and deposit their credits, according to University Grants Commission (UGC) chairman M Jagadesh Kumar.

The ABC, as envisaged in the new National Education Policy (NEP), is a national-level facility to promote flexibility of curriculum frameworks and interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary academic mobility of students across the higher educational institutions (HEls) in the country with an appropriate "credit transfer" mechanism.

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"We will write to all the HEIs offering online and open and distance learning (ODL) programmes for the mandatory compliance of the Academic Bank of Credit. The ABC provides each student the facility to open a unique and individual academic bank account in the digital form. Each account holder is provided with a unique ID," Kumar said. "The major functions of the ABC are registration of the HEls under the ABC scheme and the opening, closure and validation of the academic accounts of students, credit verification, credit accumulation, credit transfer and redemption of students and also, the promotion of the ABC among the stakeholders," he added.

The UGC chief also said the learning management system (LMS) of all universities offering online programmes may be integrated similarly with the ABC portal. "The help manual for creating ABC IDs for students through the DigiLocker portal will be sent to the HEIs. They will be requested to comply with the direction and communicate the action taken in the matter to the UGC," Kumar said.