BHUBANESWAR: The Central University of Odisha (CUO) at Koraput has started transferring credits and certificates earned by its students to the academic bank of credits (ABC) portal, a national digital facility of UGC developed by the National e-governance division of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under the DigiLocker framework. Onboarding the ABC portal is its first step towards aligning itself with the National Education Policy (NEP)-2020.
During the recent meeting of vice-chancellors of 45 central educational institutions with UGC chairman Prof M Jagadesh Kumar, controller of examinations of CUO Jayanta Nayak informed that the university has already registered over 95 per cent of its students on the ABC platform and uploaded data on student credits earned from programmes during or after the 2021-22 academic year. The data will go live soon.
ABC is an academic bank account where students’ academic credits, awards will be stored. The platform will facilitate them to maintain and transfer credits between courses and universities.
This apart, the university has done away with choice-based credit system and redesigned all its programmes as per the learning outcomes-based curriculum framework (LoCF) of UGC with focus on multi-disciplinarity. It is currently supporting multiple entry and exit options in only its integrated programmes.
While the university has discontinued its MPhil programme, it has embedded a mandatory internship/apprenticeship period into all the PG programmes. Besides, PG students have been directed to choose courses from SWAYAM and MOOC (free e-learning platforms of Ministry of Education) to earn 40 per cent of their credits.
“We have now decided to do away with the norm of submitting migration and college leaving certificates to support dual degrees at PG level, thereby allowing our students to pursue two academic programmes. This was approved in the academic council meeting held this month and is going to be placed before the executive council before it is implemented,” Nayak said.