|
|
|
|
|
| Monday, June 09, 2008
Choice-based credit system — the potential
and the challenges
The proposed academic credit system calls for a fair and transparent
internal assessment and teachers who will orient themselves
to the new pattern to reap its avowed benefits
The Tamil Nadu State Council of Higher Education (TANSCHE) has
taken the great initiative of introducing a new academic credit
system in all affiliated colleges from the coming academic year.
The genesis of this system is traced to ‘Cafeteria system’,
in vogue in the West.
Under this system in place in all North American universities,
teachers have a great deal of freedom to design their courses
and students get total freedom to choose courses for their degree
programme. The printout containing the names of courses —
core, optional and extra-departmental — offered in the
university are provided to students immediately after enrolment.
The value of each course is listed in units of credits and how
many units of credits are required for securing the respective
degrees is also stated. Most undergraduate programmes at American
universities require 120 credits, mostly with three credit classes
for the award of the undergraduate degree. The students can
take any number of courses to earn extra credits and similarly
it is up to them to decide whether they would finish their six
trimester programme in five trimesters or four semester programme
in three semesters.
There is no external evaluation scheme, since the course teacher
herself does the evaluation (100 per cent internal). One requirement
of having three credit hours in a Humanities course for Science
students and a three credit class in a Science course for their
counterparts in Humanities is made compulsory in most of the
universities.
This American academic credit system was first introduced in
Indian Central Universities and Dr. Gnanam, the then Vice-Chancellor
of Pondicherry University, is credited with implementing this
“student friendly” system in his university from
the academic year 1992-93. The nomenclature given in Pondicherry
University for the new dispensation was Choice-Based Credit
System (CBCS). Under the Pondicherry University model, the students
in postgraduate courses can take as many courses as they can
manage, provided they fulfil the prerequisites of a course,
subject to a maximum of 30 credits in any semester. It is to
be noted here that for the award of the degree, the university
insists on 72 credits, meaning 18 credits per semester. Each
programme (M.A., M.Sc., M.Com., M.C.A., etc.,) will have two
sets of courses, namely hardcore and soft core. The hardcore
courses are compulsory, while choice (limited) is given to students
in selecting the soft courses. The students are allowed a minimum
of 12 credits for doing courses of their choice. Depending on
one’s capability, the student can register for a set of
courses in appropriate forms in consultation with his or her
teacher adviser. Here evaluation is not cent per cent internal.
Stress on job-oriented syllabi
Manonmaniam Sundaranar University under the vice-chancellorship
of Dr. Vasanthi Devi was the first in Tamil Nadu to introduce
this CBCS pattern in university departments from 1996. Autonomous
colleges in Tamil Nadu, with one or two exceptions, had also
adopted this Choice-Based Credit System around this time. In
the last 10 years, almost all universities in the state have
followed the CBCS. But there is no uniform pattern followed
amongst these institutions. Notwithstanding the modification
or dilution done of the original system, the emphasis everywhere
unmistakably has been on job-oriented syllabi and socially-relevant
courses. The electives introduced in colleges and universities
have encouraged inter-disciplinary academic pursuits, enhanced
students’ competency and thereby their job prospects.
The system has also enabled the students to study the subjects
in which they are naturally proficient or interested. But the
teachers have to marshal their full intellectual and organisational
strength to attend to the daunting tasks involved.
Some vice-chancellors, realising the potential of the CBCS,
thought of extending it to affiliated colleges. But their unwarranted
fear of resistance from teachers prompted them to shelve the
project. In fact, Association of University Teachers (AUT) and
Madurai-Kamaraj-Manonmaniam Sundaranar University Teachers Association
(MUTA) have demystified the falsely perceived notion about teacher
associations by taking a leading part in Bharathiyar and Manonmaniam
Sundaranar Universities in revamping the undergraduate curriculum
in the early 1990s. Bharathiyar University was pioneer in introducing
Part IV and Part V components in undergraduate curriculum of
affiliated colleges, followed by Manonmaniam Sundaranar University.
This writer has the privilege of associating with the curriculum
reforms of the said two universities and can, therefore, assert
that the transition in these two universities to the CBCS system
will be smooth, since they already have the required framework
to get the new system started. Instead of General Awareness
paper in Part IV they have to fix one paper on Advance Tamil
or a Non-major elective and another paper on skill developing
course. They are already familiar with value-based education.
TANSCHE has been pragmatic right from the beginning. They did
not push through the full-fledged CBCS in haste. Instead they
have taken the realistic step of taking the teacher associations
into confidence and deciding to introduce the innovative system
in parts in affiliated colleges.
Computing credits
The apprehension of teachers about the possible reduction of
workload in certain departments has been cleared with an assurance
that there will be no retrenchment of teachers on account of
introduction of the CBCS. Though TANSCHE has fixed the total
number of credits for the award of undergraduate degree as 140
and the postgraduate degree as 90, they have given the freedom
of computing the credits for each course to the respective Board
of Studies. The flexibility in determining the core courses
as well as in identifying major and non-major electives is also
left to the Board of Studies concerned. By this master stroke
they have pre-empted any resistance from any quarters.
The new pattern is expected to close the opportunity gap between
the students reading in rural colleges and the students of elite
institutions and go a long way in bridging the performance/achievement
gap between those students from disadvantaged — educationally,
culturally and economically — families and those from
higher income households in the state. But a caution to the
TANSCHE is that there should be a mechanism at the university
level to monitor and address the issues that may crop up periodically
in the course of implementing the system. Internal Assessment
System which was dispensed with long ago is reintroduced in
affiliated colleges and hence every effort should be made to
make the system fair and transparent. Since the success of the
new system is largely dependent on teachers’ involvement
and commitment, the state should allocate sufficient funds to
the universities to orient the teachers of affiliated colleges
to the proposed task.
The writer is Professor of History, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University.
Courtesy: The Hindu - Education Plus
|
| << Back |
|
|
