The University of Calcutta is holding a two-day workshop — on Tuesday and Wednesday — for heads of colleges affiliated to it to decide how to go about implementing the new course structure under the National Education Policy (NEP) from the coming academic year, the first such consultation these institutions are having regarding the changes to be made in the system.
The workshop is being held at the administrative offices of the university on College Street and close to 150 principals are likely to participate. In a circular issued last week, the university did away with the traditional honours and general course for undergraduate students and introduced four-year B.A./B.Sc. and three-year B.A./B.Sc. (multi-disciplinary) degree programmes. It also did away with the prescribed duration of the curriculum, allowing students to clear all semesters within seven years.
This system is already in place in most other States, and West Bengal not only remained indecisive about it for almost a year but also when it finally chose to implement it, did so just days before the admissions were to begin. “This workshop has come quite late as admissions are to begin from July 1. Most colleges are not even ready yet with admission portals as several things remain unclear. The workshop will probably address these issues,” an associate professor belonging to a Kolkata-based college said.
“Most colleges already lack the recommended number of full-time faculty and are largely dependent on SACT (State-Aided College Teachers), and colleges can no longer appoint SACT without approval from the State Government. So, the question uppermost in the minds of principals is how to distribute workload among the existing faculty and how to meet the budget for hiring guest teachers for the smooth running of the curriculum,” the professor said.
So far, for an honours course, the Department of Higher Education recommended four full-time teachers for non-laboratory-based subjects and six full-time for the lab-based ones. Most teachers are of the opinion that with the new system in place — and the resulting increase in the number of classes—the required number of teachers would go up.
“Most principals, at the moment, are wondering how to accommodate the new courses, considering the lack of classrooms, laboratories and adequate number of teachers. Also, the old choice-based credit system will have to run along with the new curriculum for another two years, which calls for an increase in infrastructure and human resources, something not possible overnight. The workshop will, hopefully, not only address these issues but also set a timeline within which the new syllabus in all courses will be available,” a teacher who will be attending the workshop on Wednesday along with the principal of their college said.