Mumbai: Even after Maharashtra’s steering committee released a detailed report on the National Education Policy (NEP) last week, colleges around the city still face several hiccups while bringing the policy from paper to practise.
The government resolution on the policy clarifies that starting the academic year 2023-2024, students must select a major/ core subject in the first semester of their college, which will account for at least 50% of the total credits earned in the three or four-year undergraduate (UG) programmes.
While the credit breakdowns and course structure seem straightforward, college principals are left to wonder about students who might change their minds about their majors.
“The policy comes off a bit rigid. After all, undergraduate students are only 18-year-olds who try to explore their spheres of interest in college. The NEP, however, requires these students to narrow down on a major in the first year and carry on with it through the four-year programme. What if they have second thoughts?” said a principal of an autonomous college in suburban Mumbai.
From the new academic year, students are to attain a minimum of 20 and a maximum of 22 credits each semester to pass the course. Previously, the autonomous colleges in Mumbai would offer course combinations to B.A., B.Com, and B.Sc students for the first two years. The students were required to pick a major only in the third year - the last year of college.
“Guidelines about changing majors remain ambiguous in the new NEP report too. We don’t know how to let a student swap their major even after a semester, as they have already missed the introductory classes of their new core,” said another autonomous college principal from Mumbai.
Maharashtra autonomous colleges and universities have been instructed to adopt the policy, establish a NEP implementation cell, and submit their report to the state government by Sunday, April 30. Meanwhile, NEP implementation guidelines for all postgraduate courses are yet to be declared.
