Mumbai colleges sans postgraduate departments scramble to meet Maharashtra government’s 4-year undergraduate courses’ mandate

Mumbai: A day after the state government issued a Government Resolution (GR) clarifying the roadmap for the implementation of fourth year in undergraduate (UG) programmes, city colleges are scrambling to meet a key requirement — having a postgraduate (PG) programme to offer it.While some institutions are rushing to introduce PG courses to comply, others plan to approach Mumbai University to seek clarity on whether their existing PG courses can be aligned with the requirements of the four-year programmes. For instance, a teacher asked whether an MSc in Finance, which is being offered at the college, would qualify to extend the fourth-year option to BCom (Accounting and Finance) or BAF students. "Though finance remains at the crux of the programme, we are not sure if an MSc can be offered to a BCom student," said the teacher.Principals said the mandate has derailed their plans, particularly for popular courses such as BAF, BMS, BBM, BMM, BBI and BFM, where most colleges do not have PG departments. Several autonomous colleges, where the first cohort of the batch under the National Education Policy (NEP) are reaching the fourth year this June, were ready with an approved syllabi from their respective statutory bodies. Though the demand from students is not high, colleges were keen on introducing the fourth year for multiple reasons, said a principal. On Tuesday, Mumbai University issued another circular seeking information on the preparedness of colleges on Google Forms.The delay in issuing the GR, and circulars from Mumbai University on Saturday and Tuesday, have miffed some of the colleges. "The authorities had ample time to prepare, but the instructions are coming in when the first cohort of students is set to enter the fourth year in just two months," said a principal.Additionally, there is a push, not on paper, to seek ‘permission' from the university. "While the University Grants Commission has given full academic autonomy to colleges, the university has been emphasising on seeking approval on academic matters. For years we have been starting new courses approved by our academic bodies. We are keeping the university in the loop, but there was never a push to ‘seek an approval'. Now we have been asked to seek approval from the university for starting postgraduate courses to align with the four-year programmes. This is undermining the autonomy of our statutory bodies," said a principal.Another principal, however, said that they do not have a problem in seeking approval as the university is the one giving degrees, but added that the timeline could affect the start of the academic year. The university will need to fast-track all these approvals, the principal added.
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