Mumbai: St. Xavier's College, one of the most sought-after autonomous colleges in the city, has chosen to slightly deviate from the state's prescribed course structure under the National Education Policy (NEP). Instead of offering a designated major and minor course from the first year of undergraduate courses itself, the college will offer two subjects with equal credits in the first year, allowing students to make a choice about which course to pick as major and which as a minor in the second year.
The move, according to college authorities, is a way of allowing students to make a more informed choice about what they want to study. It also allows the college to better manage the timetable and a limited number of faculty available to teach a wide variety of subjects.
According to the credit framework prepared by the college, the first three years of the four-year programme will each carry two credits for minor courses, while the credits allotted to major course will increase from two in first year to four and six in second and third years, respectively. The fourth year is meant for research work and practical exposure.
Principal of St. Xavier's College, Rajendra Shinde said, “Offering subjects 1 and 2 is a method for coordinating the convergence and furthermore offers students the chance to comprehend their preference in a subject to study."
He, however, added that it will be a challenge to classify the subjects into major and minor later as the students tend to favour only a certain subjects. "Psychology is a popular option at our college, but we only have one lab for a limited number of students. With NEP, we bring to the table different options, but we have a limited number of seats,” said Shinde.
The college is offering 42 two-subject combinations to BA students and 21 combinations for BSc. However, there's only one major available for BCom - Financial Accounting - and a choice of two minor courses.
While the major and minor courses in the traditional BA, BCom and BSc programmes are largely restricted to the respective streams, the students pursuing self-financed courses will have to take up a minor course from outside their field of study.
The college has created a 'hub' of its four popular self-financed programmes, namely Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS), BCom Accounting and Finance (BAF), BSc Information Technology (IT) and BA Media Communication and Journalism (MCJ). The students majoring in one of these courses will be offered minor courses from the other three, a facility that wasn't available earlier.
"We have curated six subjects each from the four programmes into minor courses. Students can pick these courses according to their interests. We have seen equal inclination for these courses from students," said a faculty member.
