UGC to Allow Candidates to Pursue Two Programmes Simultaneously

UGC will soon allow students to pursue two full-time academic programmes simultaneously, Chairman M. Jagadesh Kumar announced in a virtual meeting today, April 12. Authorities will soon release detailed guidelines regarding the same on their official website.

The programmes can be from the same institute or different institutes. The combination allows for two online, two offline as well as a mix of both online and offline programmes simultaneously. Authorities discussed the same matter on March 31. Consequently, they have announced the decision, Kumar stated. He also suggested that institutes should prefer to employ a mix of online and offline modes.

The authorities have made this decision in alignment with the New Education Policy 2020. The policy aims for multiple career routes. This will offer multidisciplinary and holistic education across domains, Kumar said. UGC has thus framed new guidelines to help students identify their unique potential by taking different courses.

UGC has provided the following guidelines:

• A student can pursue 2 full-time academic programmes in physical mode given that the class timings of one programme don’t overlap with that of the other programme.
• Not only 2 courses in physical mode, students can also pursue 1 course in full-time physical mode with another in online or open, distance learning mode.
• Students can also pursue one online programme with another online programme.

UGC will announce the same on their official website tomorrow, April 13. Whether attendance will be compulsory in this case will depend on the universities themselves. The provision is also optional, he added.