The Delhi University has approved 30 undergraduate and postgraduate courses under Choice Based Credit System to be established across colleges in the university from the session 2019-20. Moreover, 10 vocational courses will also be launched which will impart part-time certificates to students.
Also, during the council meeting, they have also approved the proposal of increasing their intake of seats by adding 282 seats across colleges in the Delhi University by the next session.
It has also been observed that 80 new seats have been added to the BA programme at Hans Raj College which makes it now 100 seats. In Aditi Mahavidyalaya, the seats in B.Com programme have been increased from 55 to 80 and seats in B.Com college have been extended from 45 to 92. Additionally, 50 seats will be offered under Maharishi Valmiki College.
The Committee also approved the new course B.Sc Nursing (Honours) at the Florence Nightingale College of Nursing to be affiliated through Delhi University.
“The requests by the colleges to start new courses have been granted. A total of 40 courses were proposed out of which 30 have been passed. They will be introduced in the new academic year. The courses were approved by the standing committee which passed it on to the AC,” informed Hans Raj, professor, Sri Aurobindo College and member of the academic council.
According to Hans Raj, the decision of implementation of new courses and expansion of seats by 25% might prove to be additional pressure on the funds and staff of the varsity. Hence, he has also written to the University Grants Commission (UGC), Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry, and the vice chancellor of DU seeking additional grants for the new courses.
“Generally when new courses are introduced, colleges ask the teachers working with the departments to take the additional responsibility and for specialized lectures, guest faculty is invited. With the introduction of so many courses and the 10 percent reservation coming into the picture, we will be expanding as many as 25 percent seats. This will be an additional burden on the faculty and administration. We would need 3000 more teachers to join the university,” Hans Raj informed
The approval of implementation of new courses will only be possible when the intake of faculty recruitment is increased, and also ensure the availability of infrastructure. The admission to M.Ed programme will be done through the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE).
The committee has also recommended introducing MD course in Dravyaguna (ayurvedic pharmacology) and Panchkarma in Ayurvedic and Unani Tibbia College in which five and three seats will be added per year respectively.
The council has approved to add courses including physical education as a discipline course in BA programme at Lakshmi Bai College and Vivekanand College and Computer science as a discipline of BA programme at Lakshmi bai college from next academic year onwards.