While all the vice chancellors of universities have been notified to implement the choice based credit transfer system (CBCS), to be followed by semester system starting from the academic year 2015-16, by the University Grants Commission (UGC), students from Open and Distance Learning (ODL) feel deprived of certain choices and liberties attached to their curriculum.

A large number of ODL institutions follow the annual mode, due to which students feel that the chances of their programme being undermined are much likely. The student’s community  of Delhi University’s School of Open Learning (SOL) strongly feels that the CBCS and semester system should be scrapped with immediate effect as ODL students wouldn’t be entitled to even choose their basic course subjects. For example, there is no BA Hindi (hons), BA history (hons) and BA sociology (hons) in SOL. This could result in entrapment when choosing for your preferred course.

A member of DU’s executive council feels that In Delhi University semesterisation led to differences between regular courses and those offered in SOL. The differences curtailed the migration of interested SOL students to regular courses. Implementation of CBCS will only add to the discrepancy, leading to further devaluation of the ODL degree.

Talking about the advantages of CBCS for regular college students, they will be allowed to choose from the prescribed courses (core, elective or minor or soft skill courses). Furthermore, they can avail for courses of their choice, take up additional courses and acquire credits. Despite all of these, the question remains that whether the students of ODL will get the liberty of choosing their college and university or not.

The authorities, however, have suggested ways that shall be implemented to make continuous assessment possible. One being the development of a software on Moodle to further develop a learning management system.

Also, according to a recent judgement passed delivered by the Calcutta High Court, degrees awarded under the distance mode are not at par with the conventional ones. This clearly indicates that CBCS will not be in favour of ODL programmes. Mumbai University’s Institute of Distance and Open Learning (IDOL) is in favour feels that for implementing CBCS, it should be given academic autonomy. It also states that to implement the internal assignment scheme (wherein 20% to 25% weightage is given to assignments) would be a challenging and complex task.

Source: HT Education

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