Now, students need to acquire skills in NEP courses

By Mehboob Inamdar

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: The students will have to acquire various skills in the undergraduate and postgraduate courses  with the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP).

The State Government decided to implement the NEP for the PG courses from the current academic year while for UG courses, it will be adopted from the academic 2024-25. The present courses have less importance for the skills compared to NEP courses.

With the implementation of NEP for the postgraduate courses in universities and affiliated colleges across the State from the academic year 2023-24, there was a need to restructure the courses.

The Board of Studies (BoS) of all the universities including Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University (Bamu) submitted the restructured courses to the State Government.

One of the reasons for unemployment is the lack of required skills. So, there is a focus mainly on acquiring skills subject-wise.

Former dean of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University (Bamu) B B Waykar said that the BoS already redesigned the courses as per the provisions in NEP and submitted them to the university which forwarded them to the State Government. He said that the courses are skills-based in each faculty.

There will be two groups of subjects, majors and minors. In the major group, students will have to select subjects related to their courses while they will be able to choose subjects interdisciplinary in the minor subjects. A basket of subjects will be provided for students.

Dr Vikram Khilare, a Senator from the university said that the students would have to opt for the subjects from the basket system to be provided by the university after the approval of the State Government. He said that the high population of youths of the country would benefit from the skills.

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Stress on Skills Enhancement

There is stress on skills enhancement in the NEP. The students will have to acquire through practical classes in laboratories, field visits, research, workshops, internships, apprenticeships and any other forms of hands-on training. The skill-based programmes will have a mix of general and skill components in which 30-40 per cent of the total content in the syllabus.

Some of the skills are as follows;

--Critical Thinking

--Problem Solving

--Creativity

--Perseverance

--Collaboration

--Soft Skills

--Technological Skills

--Social Skills