Barely four days before degree colleges are set to open for the new academic year, syllabi are yet to be finalised. Colleges in Karnataka have been asked to resubmit their modified syllabus to their respective universities after the Department of Higher Education changed the assessment pattern earlier this week.
Initially, colleges were asked to change their syllabus for UG programmes in accordance with the National Education Policy (NEP) and submit it to the respective universities. But with the assessment pattern also changed, colleges that had submitted the revised syllabus have been instructed to re-submit it keeping in mind the revised regulations.
As per the new assessment pattern, 40% of the total marks have been allocated to internal assessment and 60% to end semester theory examination. However, for practical examinations, equal weightage will be given to the internal assessment and end-semester examinations.
Bengaluru City University (BCU) on Thursday issued an order to all principals of affiliated and autonomous colleges instructing their respective chairpersons of the board of studies to go through the revised draft regulations and make the necessary changes.
With colleges so close to starting the new academic year, the constant changes have teaching staff worried. Lecturers and principals are disappointed that the Higher Education Department decided to make the change after most departments had submitted their syllabi. “We had elaborate discussions with our board members and finalised our syllabi. Now we will have to convene the meeting again to make changes. It is very difficult to organise the meeting as many of our board members are industry experts,” said a lecturer of an autonomous college.
Another principal of a government first grade degree college said that she has directed all teachers to ensure that the assessment is tweaked to incorporate more research projects, field visits and seminars as there is greater emphasis on internal assessment. “We know that teachers will have to work again, but we have no option but to ask our lecturers to brainstorm and suggest new evaluation methods,” the principal said.
Colleges are all set to reopen on October 12 for all semesters for 2021-22. First years will have a syllabus that will be aligned with NEP for the first time. Many lecturers described the process as frustrating as apart from problems with setting the syllabus, the training programme where they will learn about teaching pedagogies is scheduled only later this month.
