The University Grants Commission recently announced the regulations for Academic Bank of Credits (ABC), in Higher Education as a means to implement some of the provisions of the National Education Policy (NEP). That the NEP aims to transform the intent and content of education sector, is very welcome. A peek into the regulations reveal some good and some not so good. First the good.
That the ABC will promote flexibility in curriculum and promote interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary education and mobility across institutions with appropriate credit transfers is good. It can facilitate students to choose their own learning path to attain a degree or Diploma or a certification with multiple entry-exits any-time, any-where, and at any-level.
ABC provides significant autonomy to students to choose courses in a program is the icing on the cake. It is complete student centric learning as it should be. However, personalized learning aims to customize learning for each student’s strengths, needs, skills, and interests. Each student gets a learning plan that’s based on what they know and how they learn best. There is a difference between the two concepts. Whereas the regulations allow the student to choose, the other creates a learning plan based on his/her strengths.
The current education delivery is too structured, rigid and expensive. Students tend to dropout for lack of interest or affordability. That these shackles are sought to be broken is also welcome. A regulation, which is a subordinate law is expected to make the pathway to implementation easy. But does it really do so?
Imagine improving Business skills with a course in Agile Management from Martin Kropp University, a leadership primer from Texas Tech University, or our very own IIM Kozhikode, or improving technical skills with courses in Data Structures and Algorithms from University of California or learning Data Skills with courses in Python, Machine Learning and Big data from the IIT’s. These are possibilities. Will our monolithic organisations facilitate this? Will the regulations allow foreign institution participation?
This also calls for a great maturity from students. Will students just 16 or 17 years, be able to decide courses to study? Can they tailor their degrees from a host of courses and also choose them from a variety of institutions? Assuming the students have the flexibility to change the course work within a B Sc or a BA or any other program, will the same Degree or a Diploma be awarded to different students studying different curriculum?
That the multiple entry-exits for students available to complete degrees as per their time preferences, providing mobility across various disciplines is a great initiative. Its implementation can be a nightmare. Assuming a student drops out, albeit temporarily after first year of class, what curriculum and designed by whom will relate his skill sets to a certain job role in the employment market at that level? If this proves difficult, as it is proving to be in Skill training, allowing an exit serves no purpose. It certainly is a challenge to design curriculum specific to job roles, since the demand side has never been mapped by any of the industry bodies.
That it is sought to support, procedurally, the teaching-learning activities to happen in a distributed and blended manner through integration across campuses or universities or autonomous colleges with increased mobility, is at best an innovative exercise. If 50% of the curriculum must be carried out within the degree granting institute, the institute will automatically become the arbiter. How does the student exercise his flexibility in such a scenario? If thus 50% curriculum is already set, the other 50% would have very little flexibility left. A meta university concept similar to the current one failed in the past. How does this guarantee success? To say this will satisfy the students’ quest for knowledge, freedom to choose and change their academic directions, connect different domains of knowledge and help them acquire the right foundations and building blocks to pursue their life goals is simply theoretical. Even assuming, counselling will be available, will it not once again create a certain straight jacketed thinking? Are we tacitly assuming that the foundations and building blocks are lacking in the current system? If flexibility with quality were the tenets, why prevent the credits being recognised from good foreign institutions? Why limit Courses only to those available on SWAYAM, NPTEL, V-Lab etc. for credit transfer and credit accumulation? One must recognise that quality does not belong to any specific domain.
Like jurisdiction of a university defeats the very purpose of reaching out quality education to anyone who wants it, in an asynchronous mode, limiting the numbers of students registering for a course in a certain university also defeats the purpose of accumulating credits.
The system does promote and facilitate lifelong learning for both formal and informal students. This is a positive. Proving authenticity of credits awarded by various institutions can be a real ordeal unless the plan also includes Blockchain technology used to authenticate and store digital records in a distributed system. What happens to credits earned but not used? Having earned some credits a student may not find interest in pursuing the courses or the direction any further. Will they become NPA’s? What if it completely turns off a student from studying any further?
It is an extremely important concept that fee will now be based on the number of credits, which is what it should be for transparency rather than be decided by some inane way of estimation. However, will market forces be allowed to dictate the fee assigned to a credit? How will the accreditation be done or Quality assured? Would the program or Institution based accreditation be valid now? Should it not be a Course based accreditation then?
Funds in excess of 6% of GDP will be required to realise the objectives. A strong business process reengineering model, is needed if the objectives of NEP are to be realised. The implementation strategy must provide a Virtual University environment where all Universities in India become collaborators, creating their own or sourcing content from SWAYAM, Coursera, EdX or Udemy like providers. Like the PM said, NEP can ensure that students become global citizens while remaining connected to their roots. Only if the focus is on integrating local with Global. Only then will youth be future ready while focussing on National goals.