Delhi University (DU) is planning to create clusters of colleges as a measure to offer a choice of a maximum number of its elective subjects to students under its four-year undergraduate programme.
Under the four-year undergraduate curriculum framework, which the DU is set to introduce for the new batch of students for whom the year is likely to begin in November, students will have the option to choose generic electives – or elective courses offered by a department other than their parent department – as part of their pool of elective courses.
In each of their first four semesters, students will have to choose one from a pool of 43 Skill Enhancement Courses (SECs) and 24 Value Addition Courses (VACs). There is another set of courses called Ability Enhancement Courses (AECs) where they have to alternate between one semester of Environment Studies and another in which they can choose one among the 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. The SECs, AECs and VACs are two-credit courses which require two hours of classes in a week.
Given these vast pools of subjects which the university will allow students to choose from, an issue that has been identified is that any one college might not have the faculty or resources to provide all the approved courses as choices to its students.
“There is a limited number of teachers… How do we ensure that students get the benefit of the choices on offer but at the same time we maximise our resources? There is a proposal that colleges should be grouped into clusters known as knowledge networks… If college A in a cluster is providing the first four SECs, maybe B is providing 5, 6, 7, C is providing 21, 22, 23, and so on. There are 43 SECs. According to their faculty’s expertise and workload, colleges can see these relevant factors and identify a pool of SECs they can offer. And if you coordinate among themselves, you can come up with a common timetable for those because there are only two credits, which means two hours in a week. Maybe you can hold the classes on a Saturday. That will enable students to get more choices within increasing the faculty in your colleges,” said dean (academic affairs) K Ratnabali, addressing representatives of colleges in an orientation to the UGCF.
She stated that the university is contemplating nine such groups of colleges – north, south, east, west, north east, north west, south east, south west and central.
The university has also instructed all colleges that they must offer all 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule as part of the AECs, even if they do not have teachers for them. “ Offer all 22, let’s see how many students are willing to take up them. In case there are no teachers but students sign up, the university will facilitate online classes. In case a neighbouring college has a teacher teaching a language, that can be utilized,” said Ratnabali.
