University Grants Commission (UGC) has approved the proposal according to which students can now pursue two degrees simultaneously. On 12th April, M Jagadesh Kumar, the chairman of University Grants Commission (UGC), announced that the students can now pursue double degrees at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level. This decision is in accordance with the National Education Policy (NEP). The dual degree program will be applicable for the academic session 2022-2023 as well. The universities and statutory bodies will be notified soon about detailed information on how to implement the same. However, the dual degree program isn’t mandatory for the universities.
UGC’s dual degree program allow students to pursue two degrees at the same time, from different colleges or from different universities. This will open the options of pursuing different combinations of courses and programs according to student’s interests. The students can now choose to add another degree, diploma, or certificate program to their existing degree. They can pursue one course from college A and another course from college B in physical mode. Also, the students can have a combination of physical and online mode or distance learning, which means one course can be in physical mode (attending classes in college) and second course in online mode. This will provide flexibility to students pursuing higher education. However, the students can not pursue one course at undergraduate level and another course at postgraduate level.
All in all, the dual degree program sounds interesting. But will it be beneficial for the students? The feasibility and practicality of the dual degree program is still questionable. Since the students can pursue two courses from two different colleges, there are high chances that the class timings would overlap. Also, if the student is bound to study both in physical mode, then having a class schedule which doesn’t overlap and gives enough time to the student to travel back and forth would be a miracle.
The dual degree program would be useful majorly to combine the main subject degree (in physical mode) with a secondary course (in online mode). Also, the curriculum of the secondary course shouldn’t be too intensive for the students. There is high probability that with two-honors degree student might end up not performing well in any of these. This also means that the number of students who can enroll in one course would increase drastically. There are always sought-after courses among students. So, the colleges need to upgrade their infrastructure to accommodate the high number of enrolling students. Another issue can be the attendance requirements. Will universities make guidelines for the minimum attendance requirements to be able to sit for exams?
There are many issues which need further clarity with respect to dual degree program. Let us wait and see what it brings and how it impacts our children.
Pooja Kaushik
High School Moms