Students can either choose a combination of a diploma programme and an undergraduate (UG) degree, two master’s programmes, or two bachelor’s programmes.
New Delhi: From this session, 2022-23, students will be able to pursue two degree courses simultaneously, said Chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC) M Jagadesh Kumar.
The commission said students will now be able to pursue two undergraduate degrees, two postgraduate degrees, or two diploma programmes together. Meanwhile, Kumar informed that the two degrees could be completed either in physical classroom mode, one online and one offline, or both in online mode.
According to reports, the guidelines will apply to all the programmes available at the colleges across the country. Students can either choose a combination of a diploma programme and an undergraduate (UG) degree, two master’s programmes, or two bachelor’s programmes.
If a student is eligible to pursue a postgraduate (UG) degree and also wants to enrol in a bachelor’s degree in a different domain, he/she will be able to pursue a UG and PG degree simultaneously. However, the class timing for both the programmes must not clash.
The two courses can also have a combination of two streams such as humanities and science. “A student can pursue B. Com and Mathematics courses simultaneously if the eligibility criteria is matched,” said Kumar.
According to reports, he added, “In the last commission meeting held on March 31, it was decided to issue guidelines which will enable students to pursue two academic programmes simultaneously because the NEP 2020 emphasises the need to facilitate multiple pathways to learning involving both formal and non-formal education forms, in the sense that a combination of the physical model, as well as the online form, should be used to provide more freedom to the students to acquire multiple skills.”
He also said, “With the rapid increase in demand for high-quality higher education and the limitation of only enrolling about 3 per cent of students on physical campuses, there have been many developments in the fields of open and distance learning, as well as online education. Many universities are now offering both offline and online programmes.”
