Draft UGC norms: One-year PG may be allowed for those with 4-year UG

Students with a four-year undergraduate degree may be allowed to pursue one-year masters, and all PG students will be able to change disciplines or switch to alternative modes of learning including offline, distance, online and hybrid, according to draft UGC norms on postgraduate courses.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has prepared a draft curriculum and credit framework for PG courses which will be put in public domain soon.

According to recommendations made in the new National Education Policy (NEP), for students completing a four-year bachelor's programme with honours/honours with research, there could be a one-year master's programme.

"Seemingly it appears there are three designs of PG such as 1-year master, 2-year master, and an integrated 5-year programme. However, given that in 4-year UG there are bachelor's (Hons.) and bachelors (Hons. with Research), creditization of work experience, combinations of disciplines with emerging subjects such as AI, Machine Learning, etc. makes the number of curricular frameworks much higher. Accordingly, the higher education institutions prepare the curriculum as per the graduate attributes of the programme," the draft norms said.

"A student is eligible for a master's programme in a discipline corresponding to either major or minor(s) discipline in UG programme. In this case, the University can admit the students in the master's programme based on the student's performance in the UG programme or through an entrance examination.

"However, irrespective of the major or minor disciplines chosen by a student in a UG programme, a student is eligible for admission in any discipline of Master's programmes if the student qualifies the National level or University level entrance examination in the discipline of the Master's programme," the draft norms said.

Further, the Commission has proposed enabling students who completed a four-year UG, three-year UG, two-year PG or five-year integrated programmes (UG PG) in STEM subjects to be eligible for admissions into ME, MTech and allied areas.

Students taking up a two-year PG programme have also been provided an exit option after the first year. Such students will be awarded a postgraduate diploma.

"The first degree often makes students think of a different career path that requires a change of subject. Changing direction with a postgraduate degree has its challenges, but NEP gives enough freedom to make it a possibility.

"Irrespective of the major or minor disciplines chosen by a student in a UG programme, a student is eligible for admission in any discipline of Master's programmes if the student qualifies the National level or University level entrance examination in the discipline of the Master's programme, the draft norms said.