They say there is no end to learning. Then why should there be a limit to the number of degrees one can have?
The premier National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore, entry into which would otherwise mean cracking the extremely tough Common Law Admission Test, opens its doors to any graduate for its distance education courses. The response has been steadily increasing since the first course was introduced in 1994 – a one year postgraduate diploma in Master of Business Laws; still the favourite.
Today, from IAS and IPS officers to retired employees, and from academicians and advocates to entrepreneurs and corporate sector engineers, the NLSIU’s Distance Education Department (DED) boasts of classrooms with a wide variety of students.
Though no new courses have been introduced since 2013 (the one-year postgraduate diploma in Cyber Law and Cyber Forensics), NLSIU plans to introduce similar postgraduate diploma courses in Administrative Law; Alternate Dispute Resolution; Law, Corruption and Good Governance; and Taxation Law.
“These courses can be pursued by any graduate of any discipline from a recognised university. No age limit or minimum pass marks are prescribed,” said an official in DED.
With a fee structure ranging from Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 34,000, NLSIU officials said the courses provide students an opportunity to ‘enhance their professional skills’, apart from helping in ‘proper documentation with a legal background’.
“Professionals join these courses for varied reasons. For some, these courses are essential in the progress of their career. For others, it is to enrich, update and upgrade their knowledge. Few of them may also join to satisfy their intellectual urge,” said an official.
Meet the className: Lakshminarasimhan N.C.
Age: 70
Retired PSU executive
Degrees: 3
Coaxed into a distance education course by his wife who had similar plans, Lakshminarasimhan N.C. opted for Environmental Law. At that time, he was 59 and a senior deputy manager with a PSU. He already had a Master’s in Chemistry from the University of Madras.
After seven years, he enrolled for a course in Consumer Law and Practice.
“I wanted to pursue a regular LLB, but could not due to age restriction,” he explains. The next year, he enrolled for a Master of Business Laws course.
“Studying is like meditation for me. Writing exams results in an improvement in coordination between the mind, eyes and fingers. It is difficult, but at some point, I stopped feeling tired and started enjoying it,” says the septuagenarian.
Next on his list: a course in Medical Law and Ethics, and another on Cyber Law and Cyber Forensics.
Name: S. Balasubramanya
Age: 59
Vice-President in an IT company
Degrees: 2
Having worked in the IT industry for over three decades, the mechanical engineering graduate from the University of Mysore, who also has a master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, was posted in Malaysia when he came across the Master of Business Laws (MBL) course.
“At first, I thought there would be an age limit; there isn’t. I had to attend contact classes once a month, which I did, teaming that with visits to my family who were in Bengaluru,” he recalled. That was in 2011 when he was 54.
Around the time he was completing that course, and coinciding with his return to India, NLSIU introduced a postgraduate diploma in Cyber Law and Cyber Forensics in 2013. He enrolled for the first batch. On completion, he was asked to conduct a few classes.
He put his MBL degree to use while conducting one-day programmes on ‘business awareness of legal contracts’ within his company for 10 batches of 25 people each.
