Students gear up to deal with ‘faulty’ CBCS

NEW DELHI: Last year, Delhi University started the Choice Based Credit System (CBCS). After about a year of implementation, teachers and students across subjects

NEW DELHI: Last year, Delhi University started the Choice Based Credit System (CBCS). After about a year of implementation, teachers and students across subjects point out flaws in the system.

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They say new students who will join the university in July will face a tough time.

The CBCS was the brainchild of the Ministry of Human Resource Development. The University Grants Commission (UGC) was entrusted with the responsibility of framing the syllabus and preparing guidelines.

Called popularly the ‘cafeteria system’, it was supposed to allow students to choose inter-disciplinary, intra-disciplinary courses. The system was to allow easy mobility for students through transfer of credits, which meant a student could study one semester in one college and then pursue the course in another college in any part of the country. But all this has remained only on paper as mobility has not taken place. Teachers say this will not be possible for a set-up like Delhi University.

“Students being allowed choices were a pre-requisite of CBCS. This has not happened in all DU colleges and it goes against the spirit of CBCS,” said Naveen Gaur, physics teacher at Dyal Singh College.

Students have to study 14 papers of the core course, four papers of GEC, eight papers of discipline specific elective (DSE), two papers each of ability enhancement course (AEC) and skill development course. Of these, in the first year a student has to study four core papers, two papers of GEC and one compulsory (AEC).