BANGALORE: Students who enrol for postgraduate (PG) courses at Bangalore University (BU) this year can study for one year and walk out with an undergraduate Honours degree, instead of studying two years for a regular Master’s degree.
The university, which has introduced the optional four-year Honours courses at the undergraduate level, will provide an exit option for Master’s students after one year of their course, Vice-Chancellor B Thimme Gowda told Express.
“It will help students who can study only one year for financial limitations or those who want to study one year and head abroad. They can go out with an Honours programme. The one year they study here will effectively be the fourth year of the undergraduate course,” he said.
Regulations, however, state that the subject a student chooses to pursue in the fourth year should be a subject he/she has studied in the preceding three years.
Confusion Over CBCS
This academic year will also see the introduction of the Choice-based Credit System (CBCS).
Prof Gowda has convened a meeting of principals and senior teachers from affiliated colleges to clear the confusion. Even as the V-C is confident of introducing the CBCS, many principals have flagged several key issues.
J Srinivas Murthy, principal, M E S College of Arts, Science and Commerce, said many aided teachers are opposed to the idea.
“The government pays salaries to aided teachers based on their workload. If students choose different subjects as optionals, there will be an increase in workload, which the government may not accept. It is really a question of job security,” he said. Prof Murthy added that teachers have not been taken into confidence in this regard.
“Even for the revision of new syllabus, there has been no orientation programme for our teachers,” he said.
The university’s new regulations governing the CBCS allows Arts students to choose two optional Arts subjects and one Science/vocational subject and two Science subjects and one Arts/vocational subject for science students along with foundation and skill development courses.
Two-year four-semester undergraduate programmes will have 64 credits, a 3-year six-semester programme will have 104-108 credits and a 4-year Honours programme 156 credits.
“We have not changed the structure of the existing UG programme, where students will still have two language and three optional subjects. Even if students have not been allowed to choose optionals based on their interest, we will allow change of subjects next year,” Prof Gowda said.