5 years on, key NEP policies are failing on the ground

NEW DELHI: Gaurav Kishore, in third year of BSc Programme with chemistry at Delhi University’s St.Stephen’s College, is among the first batch of students who will have the option of staying on for another year, as part of the four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP) A key reform brought by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the FYUP is being implemented from 2025-26.

Kishore, however, doesn’t plan to stay on, citing a “lack of clarity on the structure” and “distinctly defined curriculum” as reasons. Even faculty members feel that just about 10% of the present batch will remain for another year.

While FYUP, with multiple entry and exit, was one of the first reforms universities adopted, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has introduced new policies or revised existing ones at a stupendous rate. At an event to unveil the draft policy for teacher recruitment, education minister Dharmendra Pradhan approvingly said the higher education regulator has introduced around 45 regulations over the past three years.

However, this bombardment has only added to the burden on the overloaded staff and strained infrastructure of universities facing shortage of funds.

And so, universities have been putting off the launch of dual-degree and twinning programmes, lateral entry, credit transfer of online courses, and introduction of Indian Knowledge System (IKS) – to list just a few of the dozens of new initiatives.

Debraj Mookerjee, associate professor of English at DU’s Ramjas College, summarised the NEP and the regulations thus: “It is aimed towards standardisation across the country. However, there cannot be a centralised model. This obsessive standardisation is leading to lowering of standards. But diversity is enriching and [that is] what is needed.”

Plus, the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for central university admissions has thrown academic calendars off-track across institutions.

FYUP: The four-year problem

Kishore already has a job offer. “For me personally, I don't plan on continuing for the fourth year, since I have gotten an offer to work with a firm. As for the batch’s sentiments, the majority is planning on dropping after the third year due to a few reasons. There has been no clarity on the structure of the fourth year course. We still don't know if classes will happen in college or in the university. The eligibility criteria have not been explicitly explained to the students.”

Lucknow University, the first to embrace FYUP, has allowed only students with a CGPA of 7.5 to continue to the fourth year.

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In 2023, UGC had stated that 105 universities, including 19 central universities, had signed up for FYUP. DU organised a meeting with 60 college principals to discuss the policy only recently in February. As per the UGC, the fourth year can lead either to an “Honours” or “Honours with Research” degree. In the first case, students must complete 160 credits in the major discipline; in the second, 12 of the 160 credits must come from a research project or dissertation.

A faculty member remarked, “The fourth-year structure should be known in advance. The research methodology will have to be defined. They will collect feedback and form policy – that is what is happening.”

English student Faraz Sarwer added, “This structure has left students more confused. We don’t have any clarity and even the faculty are not much aware. Most humanities students would leave with a three-year degree as they wish to pursue civil service or even law.” Sarwer plans to pursue masters after the third year.

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Now that that university is allowed a fourth year, there is no clarity on whether it’ll allow lateral entry for students who wish to come back.

Entry and exit

The FYUP comes with a policy of multiple entry and exit – in theory, students will be allowed to leave early with a lower qualification to rejoin later and complete their studies. The credits earned along the way will be stored in the Academic Bank of Credits (ABC).

University of Hyderabad is being “cautious about implementing lateral entry” into programmes.

“The university has implemented multiple exits. However, we are cautious about implementing lateral entry into our programmes, both for logistical and administrative reasons. We are holding consultations with the academic departments on how best to implement multiple entries and are in the process of preparing guidelines,” said an official.

On the four-year-structure, UoH stated that they had been offering a five-year integrated programme since 2006.

“We have now introduced exit options as per NEP recommendations from academic year 2022. The university has introduced a four-year UG programme in chemistry from 2024,” added the official.

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Central University of Tamil Nadu started the four-year programme in the 2023-24 academic year.

Value addition, skill enhancement

Along with FYUP, came “Value Added Courses” (VAC), “Skill Enhancement Courses” (SEC) and “Ability Enhancement Courses” (AEC), which are distributed across semesters.

Delhi University’s two-credit VAC courses include the “Art of Being Happy”, “Vedic Mathematics”,“Constitutional Value and Fundamental Duties” among several others. There are one-hour exams on these.

Students don’t see the point of having them. “These additional selective courses in general have been more of burden than of use,” said Kishor.

“With the sciences that have lab course work as well, these classes, which are not limited to just the two-three hours of classes [per course] but also including assignment and internals, feel burdensome. All learning…. is tokenistic and not of any real-world use, beyond adding to students’ stress.”

With these, the number of papers has risen from four to seven per year. In the third year the number comes down to six.

Mookerjee added, “The excessive number of examinations is overloading the structure and also burdening the students.”

He suggested an alternative: “They should make the generic elective and honours papers university exams. Rest could be internal assessment. The two-credit courses should be internally assessed.…Let the department give the structure and let assessment be a continuous process. The burden of the end-term examination is taken off the shoulders of the university and students. Due to these exams, there is extra invigilation and one semester impinges on the other, messing up with the academic calendar.”

Teachers also find the VAC and SEC papers sub-par with students wrapping up their one-hour exams in 35 minutes.

A college teacher, on condition of anonymity, remarked, “NEP talks about skill development…. How much funds have you allocated to different universities to set up labs to teach the subject? Nobody talks about resources and infrastructure augmentation [needed] for us to be able to teach these courses well.”

Not only are the courses of little use, they impinge upon the more critical honours programmes, in which the number of units has dropped from five to three.

The state-run Calcutta University has also adopted the structure and reshaped the curriculum accordingly but implementing the change in its colleges is a challenge.

An assistant professor at Calcutta University said, “All the departments have tailored their curriculum as per NEP. As it is a completely new curriculum and structure, that has to be dealt with so we update it from time to time. Also CU has numerous colleges under its purview – managing the whole thing is quite a task in itself.”

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UoH is offering around 30 VACs but in online mode. “Some programmes also have an in-built skill component. In programmes that do not have a skill component, academic units are in the process of helping each other out and including skill components,” added the official.

Along with these are AECs which are on language and, therefore, more useful and accepted.

“More people are inclined towards different regional languages of India. I have seen north eastern people take up Tamil and South Indian people learn Urdu,” said Sarwer.

Burden on faculty

Expansion and reforms both require teachers in numbers most universities don’t have.

In consequence, most of the burden falls on existing faculty. Universities are also relying heavily on guest teachers for many of the additional courses FYUP has brought.

“For courses such as public speaking and communication, it falls on the English department of each college. Most students want to opt for it and then managing the sheer numbers becomes a task. As guest faculties cannot be on invigilation duty, it ultimately falls on the permanent faculty only,” said Mookerjee.

There is also no clarity on whether faculty strength will be enhanced for teaching the fourth year.

A Sikkim University professor once remarked to colleagues: “We are not Goddess Durga with 10 arms. We have just two – how can they put everything on us?”

An assistant professor shared, “In SU, the faculty strength is not full so implementing changes requires time. Like CU, we also have a lot of affiliated government colleges. Even if these colleges want to implement the reforms, there are issues of funding and allocation.”

SU implemented the four-year-structure in the 2024-25 academic session.

The cluster model

As part of its bid to enhance flexibility for students, the NEP proposed clustering institutions. If a student wishes to pursue a course not available in their college, they can go to a different one within the same cluster. In practice, the logistics of implementing this has proved simply too challenging.

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In DU, some colleges have been designated as nodal centres but there’s been little progress beyond that.

“This may work for North Campus colleges, but what happens to other colleges which are situated far off and in different locations. How are the teachers supposed to sync the timetable of each and every college to allow students to travel? The entire thing about students choosing subjects from a variety of courses gets derailed on ground,” said a senior faculty of Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) on condition of anonymity.

Other UGC regulations

The UGC framed regulations on dual and twinning degree programmes in 2022 – both policies related to academic collaboration with foreign institutions.

Five years on, CUTN is yet to launch any such degree but a university official said that “twinning/dual degree programmes are a priority area for development”.

In DU, the matter was placed before its statutory bodies in 2023 but stalled due to opposition. There were concerns that this would lead to dilution of quality.

Multiple universities stated they have allowed students to pursue two academic programmes but left the students to manage their dual pursuits.

UOH stated that students are free to pursue two academic programmes as per NEP norms and UHC regulations.

In CUTN, the official said, “While we do not currently offer the option for students to pursue two full-time academic programmes within the university, simultaneously, however we do support students who wish to pursue a second academic programme through online mode from other recognised institutions. This approach allows students to broaden their knowledge and skills without compromising their primary course at CUTN.”

Online courses

There has been a concerted push for online learning, now an important parameter in rankings as well.

UGC allows up to 50% of courses to be taken online; CUTN and UoH have limited it to 40%.

The UoH official said, “The university has issued guidelines on the adoption of SWAYAM courses. Academic units will be required to get approval on specific courses, semester on semester. Now that UGC allows universities to conduct their own end-semester assessment, students will be able to register for such approved courses and complete the internal assessment of the SWAYAM Course. The credits gained by the students will be accrued to the student's account. The university has also nominated a SWAYAM co-ordinator at the university level to coordinate with SWAYAM central; besides, all schools will have a SWAYAM coordinator.”

A recent parliamentary panel report raised concerns about quality and completion rates on SWAYAM.

To facilitate movement between courses and institutions, online and offline, the UGC now allows credit transfers via the ABC. In theory, students can transfer credits and pursue another course in another university.