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The British Raj left behind a university system in India, which was modelled after their system back home. The student was assessed at the end of each year, for the three-year undergraduate course, where he or she underwent a university-level examination at end of each year to assess the student’s comprehensive grasp of the subject, be it history, English, chemistry, biology or physics. A similar pattern of examination was followed for the two-year post-graduate studies. All this is soon set to change.
So why have the policy makers thought that a semester-style, credit-system for higher education, which is typically an American system of education, makes more sense than the year-end comprehensive examination? That too 60 years after Independence. In India, only JNU and IIT follow the semester system of education.
Have institutions like the University of Delhi failed in some way that has made policy-makers at alternate models that have been functioning well? Says Dr Hema Raghavan, former principal, Gargi College, and former dean of student’s welfare, “There is a very strong feeling among faculty members that the semester-system will make the students more focused and control absenteeism. A semester is also more intensive, so the student has to keep up with what is being taught in class.” The negatives of a semester system are that the system is internal and marking, therefore, can be subjective. Of course, the credit system does not reveal the actual marks so it decreases the sense of failure that a student feels. Says Dr Raghavan, “A three-year under-graduate course such as what Delhi University has at present is comprehensive as the subjects are taught over a period of time and there is continuity, whereas, once a semester is over, you get on to the next semester, and forgot what you learnt the previous year.”
She added, “In Delhi university, the papers are set by one faculty member whereas it is corrected by another professor in an examination, therefore, marking tends to be more objective. In the UK that follows a under-graduation pattern similar to India, the course is more intensive as there are more assignments and seminars that make a student more involved.” Also, the faculty is less involved as a lot of work involves self-study in UK. “Sheer numbers in Indian universities would make it difficult to have more assignments,” says Raghavan. Delhi university for example, has about 2,20,000 in its 79 colleges.
The government is aiming to aggressively push the Gross Enrolment Ratio to 15% from the current 10% and the setting up of the 30 universities that will have the semester system in place is estimated to cost the government Rs 1,31,022 crore. The University of Bombay, for instance, has already experimenting with the semester system and has several programmes in the semester mode. These are basically post-graduate programmes in the areas of management and IT.
Says Dr Vijay Khole, vice-chancellor, University of Bombay, “The reason for post-graduate programmes being on the semester system is that it works well for students at that level, who are ready to take-off (that is, pick up jobs), once they complete their respective programmes.” Industry expects that they have solid assignment work and training behind them, which is available in a semester programme. Undergraduate programmes, Khole feels, require a different set up.
He says, “It makes sense to stick to an end-of-the-year examination system with them. However, there are some notable exceptions. The advantage of the semester system over the end-of-the-year examination method is that it is rigorous. Assignments have to be completed within a stipulated time frame, which helps. In the end-of-the-year examination module, students tend to take their courses a little lightly.” The University of Bombay has, however, started experimenting with the five-year integrated physics programme, which will commence this year, is on a semester and grade system. The five-year integrated language programmes are already on semester and grade systems.
Meanwhile, the IITs have been experimenting with the semester since 1953 with the inception of IIT Kharagpur. Says P V Indiresan, former director, IIT Madras, “The IIT has implemented the semester and credit system well. It works well, there is no fixed syllabus and the teacher decides on the syllabus. It is an internal system and there are no external examiners. All students pass as they have to get pass about 180 credits out of 200 in 4 years of B Tech.”
Bringing in the semester in the new varsities would bring in a system of continuous evaluation, say former professors at JNU and eminent social scientists Prof Imtiaz Ahmed and Prof C P Bhambri. They say, “Students tend to be much more involved in a semester system and the relationship between the teacher and student is far more personal.”
Meanwhile, says Dr Meenakshi Rishi, associate professor of economics, Albers School of Business and Economics, Seattle University, who has studied in JNU, DU and in the US, “The semester system affords more flexibility to the student. One can take courses across the board and can take twice as many courses over an entire year compared to the more traditional system. Then if one is seriously interested in something one can take additional courses in the area. Where the credit system is concerned, again one can take credits by combining unique combinations.” For example, if a student is studying music, she can also take a class in business for general credit. In other words it makes education more broad-based. According to senior faculty at Yale University who wished to remain anonymous and replied by email, “There are a number advantages to the semester system, which is the format that Yale University follows. The many advantages of the semester system derive from the longer time span of the academic term which allows for a greater depth of study for both students and faculty—giving them the time to explore course topics in greater detail and have more discussions and other activities.” At Yale, the most important advantage of the semester system is that faculty and students can have a deeper interaction, which we know is essential to learning, he added.
In the credits system, credits earned at one institution can often be transferred to another. Twinning programmes s that US universities have established with Indian institutions take advantage of this—a student who successfully completes pre-approved academic coursework in India can transfer the credits to a US university. The executive director, United States Education Foundation for India, Jane E Schukoske, “The semester system breaks up learning into more manageable blocks of time—15 weeks, which allows students to take more courses. This gives students the flexibility to choose according to their own learning needs, interests and aptitude. In addition to core courses within a major field of study, a student may take courses from other disciplines. I would describe the annual curriculum as a thali and the semester system with a credit-based curriculum as a cafeteria menu.” |
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