Twice A Year Admissions In July/August And January/February In Universities From 2024-25: Benefits And Challenges
Now the universities are allowed to take admission twice a year – in July/August and January/February as per the University Grants Commission (UGC) decision. However, universities don’t need to adopt the new admission system compulsorily. Under the new admission system, students will be admitted twice in graduate, post-graduate, and PhD programs.
Earlier UGC allowed a biannual admission process for open and distance learning and online programs which helped nearly half a million students join their degree programs without waiting for another session for a full year, the UGC Chairman said.
The new admission system will allow students who skipped the August/September session for various reasons. As per the data, currently, the GER is 28.4% means only 28.4% of students get enrolled in higher studies. This will allow to increase in the ‘gross enrollment ratio (GER)’ for higher education, the UGC Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar said. The decision is in line with the National Education Policy 2020 to enhance it to 50% by 2035.
#WATCH | University Grants Commission (UGC) Chairman Jagadeesh Kumar says, “In our country, we always start admission for one cycle in July-August but in the last commission meeting we decided that from now on all universities and colleges in India can do admission twice, once in… pic.twitter.com/Ihf23ADJ3G
— ANI (@ANI) June 11, 2024
The decision allows universities to reflect on the admission cycle of foreign universities, for instance, intakes in the fall (session begins in August/September) and in the spring (session begins in January). The new system will also allow Indian institutions to collaborate with foreign universities and student exchanges.
However, the decision is not binding on the universities as the academics and executive council will take the final decision. The main obstacle to implementing the new admission system is the lack of sufficient infrastructure and faculty members to take up the new batches. According to the IC report 2021-22, nearly 4.33 crore students were admitted to various universities and colleges while only 15.28 lakh faculty members were available. A low number of teachers may increase the burden on the existing faculty.
Another factor that may hinder the universities is to conduct the examination twice which requires resources and time. Reportedly, the plans are to accept the CUET scores for the two different seasons.
According to Dr. Abdul Rahman, a former TISS and DU faculty the UGC decision has several practical issues. He said, “It is not a good decision because it will be a burden on Indian universities which are already understaffed and lack infrastructure. It will be a lot of work from finding seats to scrutinizing applications to providing hostels and other necessary facilities to students twice a year. Most of the Universities do not have enough space for running two batches for the same course in the same year. It will upset their exams etc as well. That is the technical aspects”.
The private universities may adopt the new system easily due to the lesser infrastructure and faculty issues while the public universities may defer it, some analysts say.
As per the Punjab University VC, the new system can be initially accepted to the PhD programs and could be adopted for graduate and post-graduate courses later on.
However, analysts are questioning the creation of enough employment opportunities for everyone who is coming out of university after completing degree programs.
