Dr Asangba Tzudir
In an attempt to revamp higher education and bring all the Universities and Colleges under a single Umbrella of grading, learning and standards in the country, the University Grants Commission (UGC) in 2014 came up with a system called Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) with the directive that all Universities and other higher education institutions should follow this program from 2015 onwards. The main intent behind the CBCS is to have the flexibility of choosing a course by students.
Nagaland University has also finally adopted the system and is going to be implemented in the upcoming semester. The CBCS offers a flexible approach to learning in which students have freedom to choose inter-disciplinary, intra-disciplinary and skill-oriented courses making education broader and interesting.
The CBCS is aimed at ushering in a multi-disciplinary approach to the curriculum, providing students a strong diversity of opportunities by allowing them to take credits earned in one institution to another institution to which they transfer. Contextually it also needs to be seen as to how Nagaland University will adapt to the multidisciplinary approach where students wanting to take a paper not offered in their college and therefore will have to take it from some other college a particular paper from a different college.
At the grassroots, looking at the pros, the new CBCS can be seen as a major shift from the teacher centric to learner centric education. Learners can offer as many credit as they can cope up the pressure of learning as well as examination. It permits students to choose soft courses of different interdisciplinary and intra disciplinary subjects with the core subjects besides the freedom to choose courses and papers as per their choice and interest and career plans. Allowing the mobility of students from one institution to another one to add variety to their learning helps learners realize their true potentials. All round development of learners or multi facets personality of learners can be promoted. The knowledge of different soft courses will be helpful even for employment avenues. Having a set of papers based on one’s interests, it would definitely reduce stress and anxiety of learners while also enhancing their work ethics. The system has also opened up for a balanced course brought in by the skill enhancement subjects. Besides the learning experiences, equality among the learners can be ensured through the grading system.
On the other side, in spite of the advantages that it brings, it comes with its own disadvantages. Firstly, the work load especially of teachers would be increased, and a sudden increase in the workload may add to the stress. Allowing mobility of students from one institution to another has its own disadvantages to the overall functioning and scheduling of the college. Compatibility between main subject’s papers and soft papers, and also dealing with different nature of subjects simultaneously would be a challenging one. On the whole, the extra burden caused by lengthy teaching hours may leave the various Committee activities wanting for time. With inter and intra approach to learning, mastery over concerned subject would be hampered. There will also be difficulties of maintaining the cumulative record of each student as the process of record keeping will only get lengthier, the problem will only compound if staffs are either not adequate in number or in terms of skills. With continuous or internal assessment and evaluation, a lot of time will be consumed in examinations.
Besides being new for Nagaland, the new CBCS is going to be implemented during a pandemic which only adds to the challenge of its implementation. The absence of a trial may not help for a smooth entry of the new system. While the lack of preparation will be deeply felt by both students and teachers alike, a major challenge will be the infrastructure because simply by stretching the duration of class hours will not make up for the lack of adequate infrastructure in most colleges so as to start both General and Honors courses. It also needs to be seen as to the degree of match or mismatch in terms of the general prescribed CBCS guidelines and the course structure and syllabus developed for each subject by Nagaland University.
In perspective, bringing the pros and cons of the system, it is seen that a lot of balancing is desired. If not the whole purpose of the system will slowly get redundant and finds itself defeated.
(Dr Asangba Tzudir writes a weekly guest editorial for The Morung Express. Comments can be mailed to asangtz@gmail.com)
