Miranda House
College for Women, University of Delhi
Courses
Choice Based Credit System (CBCS)
A restructured Undergraduate Programme in the Semester mode has been introduced from the session 2015-2016. The CBCS provides an opportunity for the students to choose courses from the prescribed courses comprising core, elective/minor of skill based courses. The courses can be evaluated following the grading system, which is considered to be better than the conventional marking system. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce uniform grading system in the entire higher education in India. This will benefit the students to move across institutions both within India and across countries. The uniform grading system will also enable potential employers in assessing the performance of the candidates. In order to bring uniformity in evaluation system and computation of the Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) based on student's performance in examinations, the UGC has formulated the guidelines to be followed
Outline of Choice Based Credit System
Core Course (14 for honours courses; 4 discipline specific papers each for regular courses and 2 papers each for English and Hindi/MIL in B.A.): The papers under this category are going to be taught uniformly across all universities with 30% deviation proposed in the draft. The purpose of fixing core papers is to ensure that all the institutions follow a minimum common curriculum so that each institution/university adheres to common minimum standard. Also the course designed for papers under this category aim to cover the basics that a student is expected to imbibe in that particular discipline. A course, which should compulsorily be studied by a candidate as a core requirement is termed as a Core course.
Elective Course Generally a course which can be chosen from a pool of courses and which may be very specific or specialized or advanced or supportive to the discipline/subject of study or which provides an extended scope or which enables an exposure to some other discipline/subject/domain or nurtures the candidate's proficiency/skill is called an Elective Course.
Discipline Specific Elective (DSE) Course (4 for honours courses and 2 each for regular courses): Elective courses offered under the main discipline/subject of study is referred to as Discipline Specific Elective. The list provided under this category are suggestive in nature and each University has complete freedom to suggest their own papers under this category based on their expertise, specialization, requirements, scope and need. The University/Institute may also offer discipline related Elective courses of interdisciplinary nature (to be offered by main discipline/subject of study).
Dissertation/Project*: An elective course designed to acquire special/advanced knowledge, such as supplement study/support study to a project work, and a candidate studies such a course on his own with an advisory support by a teacher/faculty member is called dissertation/project.
Generic Elective (GE) Course (4 for honours courses and 2 for B.A. regular course): An elective course chosen from an unrelated discipline/subject, with an intention to seek exposure beyond discipline/s of choice is called a Generic Elective. The purpose of this category of papers is to offer the students the option to explore disciplines of interest beyond the choices they make in Core and Discipline Specific Elective papers. The list provided under this category are suggestive in nature and each University has complete freedom to suggest their own papers under this category based on their expertise, specialization, requirements, scope and need. P.S.: A core course offered in a discipline/subject may be treated as an elective by other discipline/subject and vice versa and such electives may also be referred to as Generic Elective.
Ability Enhancement Courses (AEC):The Ability Enhancement (AE) Courses may be of two kinds: Ability Enhancement Compulsory Courses (AECC)and Skill Enhancement Courses (SEC). 'AECC' courses are the courses based upon the content that leads to Knowledge enhancement; i. Environmental Science and ii. English/Hindi/MIL Communication. These are mandatory for all disciplines. SEC courses are value-based and/or skill-based and are aimed at providing hands-on-training, competencies, skills, etc.
Ability Enhancement Compulsory Courses (AECC): Environmental Science, English Communication/Hindi Communication/MIL Communication.
Skill Enhancement Courses (SEC)(minimum 2 for honours courses and 4 for regular courses): These courses may be chosen from a pool of courses designed to provide value-based and/or skill-based knowledge and should contain both theory and lab/hands-on/training/field work. The main purpose of these courses is to provide students life-skills in hands-on mode so as to increase their employability. The list provided under this category are suggestive in nature and each University has complete freedom to suggest their own papers under this category based on their expertise, specialization, requirements, scope and need.
Practical/tutorials (One each with every core and discipline/generic specific elective paper): The list of practical provided is suggestive in nature and each university has the freedom to add/subtract/edit practical from the list depending on their faculty and infrastructure available. Addition will however be of similar nature.
*Introducing Research Component in Under-Graduate Courses
Project work/Dissertation is considered as a special course involving application of knowledge in solving / analyzing /exploring a real life situation / difficult problem. A Project/Dissertation work would be of 6 credits. A Project/Dissertation work may be given in lieu of a discipline specific elective paper
Implementation
The CBCS may be implemented in Central/State Universities and the stakeholders agree to follow common minimum curriculum and syllabi of the core papers and given by the UGC. The allowed deviation from the syllabi being 30 % at the maximum.
The universities may be allowed to finally design their own syllabi for the core and elective papers subject to point no. 1. UGC may prepare a list of elective papers but the universities may further add to the list of elective papers they want to offer as per the facilities available.
Number of Core papers for all Universities has to be same for both UG Honors as well as UG regular courses.
Credit score earned by a student for any elective paper has to be included in the student's overall score tally irrespective of whether the paper is offered by the parent university (degree awarding university/institute) or not.
For the introduction of AE Courses, they may be divided into two categories:
AE Compulsory Courses: The universities participating in CBCS system may have common curriculum for these papers. There may be one paper each in the 1st 10 two semesters viz. (i) English/Hindi/MIL Communication, (ii) Environmental Science.
Skill Enhancement Courses: The universities may decide the papers they may want to offer from a common pool of papers decided by UGC or the universities may choose such papers themselves in addition to the list suggested by UGC. The universities may offer one paper per semester for these courses.
The university/Institute may plan the number of seats per elective paper as per the facility and infrastructure available.
An undergraduate degree with Honours in a discipline may be awarded if a student completes 14 core papers in that discipline, 2Ability Enhancement Compulsory Courses (AECC), minimum 2Skill Enhancement Courses (SEC)and4 papers each from a list of Discipline Specific Elective and Generic Elective papers, respectively.
An undergraduate degree in Science disciplines may be awarded if a student completes 4 core papers each in three disciplines of choice, 2Ability Enhancement Compulsory Courses (AECC), minimum 4Skill Enhancement Courses (SEC)and 2 papers each from a list of Discipline Specific Elective papers based on three disciplines of choice selected above, respectively.
An Undergraduate degree in Humanities/ Social Sciences/ Commerce may be awarded if a student completes 4 core papers each in two disciplines of choice, 2 core papers each in English and Hindi/MIL, respectively, 2 Ability Enhancement Compulsory Courses (AECC), minimum 4 Skill Enhancement Courses (SEC), 2 papers each from a list of Discipline Specific Elective papers based on the two disciplines of choice selected above, respectively, and two papers from the list of Generic Electives papers.
For the purpose of calculation of credits the following mechanism may be adopted:
1 Credit = 1 Theory period of one hour duration
ii) 1 Credit = 1 Tutorial period of one hour duration
iii) 1 Credit = 1 Practical period of two hour duration
The credit(s) for each theory paper/practical/tutorial/project/dissertation will be as per the details given in A, B, C, D for B.Sc. Honours, B.A./B.Com. Honours, B. Sc. and B.A./B.Com., 10 respectively (Page 12 onwards).
Wherever a University requires that an applicant for a particular M.A./M.Sc. /Technical/Professional course should have studied a specific discipline at the undergraduate level, it is suggested that obtaining 24 credits in the concerned discipline at the undergraduate level may be deemed sufficient to satisfy such a requirement for admission to the M.A./M.Sc./Technical/Professional course.
The CBCS Committee unanimously recommended that after running the CBCS for under-graduate courses in Universities/Colleges/Institutes for one academic session UGC should review the course structure and syllabi in order to rectify anomalies, if any, based on the feedback from stakeholders.
The Universities/Institutes may offer any number of choices of papers from different disciplines under Generic Elective and Discipline Specific Elective as per the availability of the courses/faculty.
Universities/Institutes may evolve a system/policy about Extra Curricular Activities/ General Interest and Hobby Courses/Sports/NCC/NSS/Vocational courses/related courses on their own.
A student can opt for more number of Elective and AE Elective papers than proposed under the model curriculum of UGC. However the total credit score earned will not exceed 160 credits for UG Honours and 140 credits for UG degree.
The new scheme of UG courses should be given due consideration while framing the admission eligibility requirement for PG/ Technical courses in Indian Universities/Institutions to ensure that students following inter and multi-disciplinary format under CBCS are not at a disadvantage It is suggested that wherever required, obtaining 24 credits in particular discipline may be considered as the minimum eligibility, for admission in the concerned discipline, for entry to PG/Technical courses in Indian Universities/Institutions