Nagaland University to launch UG programme in basic sciences starting 2025-26

NEW DELHI : Nagaland’s only central university, Nagaland University, is launching a new undergraduate programme in basic sciences, starting from the academic session 2025-26, in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The university also plans to start a multi-disciplinary research centre that will offer more programmes in the field.

Initially, the new centre will offer three-year or four-year UG programmes in botany, chemistry, mathematics, physics and zoology. Later, more programmes will be offered such as integrated postgraduate programmes in botany, chemistry, mathematics, physics, and zoology; PhD programmes in all sciences and social sciences; and integrated PhD programmes in all sciences and social sciences with an emphasis on multidisciplinary research.

The programmes will start with a seat intake of 50 across all the disciplines (botany, chemistry, mathematics, physics, and zoology) during the academic year 2025-26.

CUET UG score required for admission

According to the eligibility criteria, a candidate must secure a first class with 60 percent marks throughout academics up to Class 12 or any other equivalent exam. A candidate must also have a valid Common University Entrance Test (CUET UG) score in the relevant discipline.

The UG programme aims to equip students in fields across arts, humanities, languages, natural sciences, and social sciences. Students will get to learn soft skills including complex problem solving, critical thinking, creative thinking, and communication skills, along with specialization in a chosen disciplinary or interdisciplinary major and minors.

Under the programme, students can opt for a change of major within the broad discipline (natural and physical sciences, mathematical, statistics, and computational sciences, library, information and media sciences, commerce and management, and humanities and social sciences) at the end of the first year.

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Highlighting the benefits of the new courses, professor Jagadish K Patnaik, vice-chancellor, Nagaland University, said, “We want to pursue and promote world-class research and training and push the frontiers of basic sciences, covering broad areas ranging from material to life sciences with topics of multidisciplinary nature. We are keen to remove rigid boundaries and facilitate new possibilities for learners. Further, the University will also offer creative combinations of disciplines of study that would enable ‘multiple entry and exit’ points and re-entry options.”

Patnaik added, “The ‘multiple entry and exit’ option will pave the way for seamless student mobility between or within degree-granting Higher Education Institutes through a formal system of credit recognition, credit accumulation, credit transfers, and credit redemption, through Academic Bank of Credit (ABC) mechanism.”