Tuesday 9 June 2015

Critically comment on various objections raised against the choice-based credit system (CBCS).

Ans1:

Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) is a step taken by the University Grants Commission (UGC) which directs all universities to offer a range of courses to their students. While such a system will offer more flexibility to the students, CBCS also has a lot of lacunae, which are leading to resentment against it. These are:

1. Common Syllabus - Along with CBCS, the UGC has also directed all Universities to have a common syllabus. While the objective behind this step is to enable inter-university transfer of students, this step will affect the quality of universities. And every university will be brought down to a common average level.

2. Bureaucratization of Education - A dynamic education sector requires that major initiatives are taken by the sectoral experts. However, in this case CBCS and its attendant conditions will lead to a bureaucratization of education and take away the autonomy of the Universities.

3. Stakeholder Resistance - There is increasing resistance from students and teachers against CBCS. It is necessary that their concerns are addressed. Otherwise the CBCS initiative could meet the fate of the aborted Four Year Undergraduate Program (FYUP) of the Delhi University.

4. Lack of Clarity - There is a lack of clarity about implementation of the system. Any initiative is only as good as its execution. Thus, there needs to be greater clarity about the implementation of CBCS.

The Indian Education sector is overdue for reforms and the UGC must be applauded for trying to invigorate the sector. However, experts and other stakeholders have raised valid concerns. These need to be suitably resolved and CBCS modified to ensure that the proposed reform take the education sector forward and not backwards.

Ans2:

And. CBCS was aimed at introducing multidisciplinary approach and facilitating migration from one university to another. However there are certain concerns against CBCS which are :

1. Unclear guidelines : Teachers have objected to unclear guidelines regarding the implementation of CBCS, leaving them in a state of confusion.

2. Top down approach : Implementation of CBCS will take away autonomy of education institutions to some extent in deciding their curriculum and give UGC more powers vis-a-via them.

3. Neglect of certain subjects : With the coming of CBCS, the popularity of already in-demand subjects will increase and the less popular subjects will further be neglected. Students will have a choice to opt out of them and switch to more popular subjects.

4. Preferring industry over academics : The design of CBCS may promote the demands of industry over that of academics and research as in student joining more vocation oriented courses, and may result into lower level of academic and research activities.

5. Difficulty in implementation : Introduction of CBCS will result in additional administrative overhead for the universities which are already facing problems such as delayed examination and result declaration due to crunch of manpower and other resources.

CBCS though a right step towards introducing multidisciplinary approach should be introduced phase-wise, taking all stockholders into consideration and strengthening the capacity of universities to introduce the system.

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