All the universities in India will now have an Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) which will hold students’ academic accounts or credits.
The concept of ABC was recommended under the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 which allows students to leave a course and join it after a certain time from where they have left it.
Through ABC — the movement of students within a university, implying from one course to another and across universities from one institute to another — will also be possible.
The movement of students will be based on the ‘credits’ they have earned. Academic credit is calculating one hour of theory or one hour of tutorial or two hours of laboratory work per week for a duration of a semester. A semester is about 13-15 weeks long. Credits for internship should be one credit per one week subject to a maximum of six credits, as per the UCG.
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Students can also choose the entire course as per their choice. If a student does that without failing in a particular subject domain and earns the total credits required for a UG degree to be awarded by a university then such a degree may be specified as a Bachelor of Liberal
Education (B. LE.).
The validity of such credits earned will be to a maximum period of seven years or as specified separately by ABC for different subject disciplines to allow the redemption of credits after the date of earning such credits.
ABC will be a bank for academic purposes “on the pattern of a commercial bank for financial purposes with students as account holders
To whom, the ABC shall provide a variety of services including credit verification, credit accumulation, credit transfer/redemption and degree authentication”, as per the UGC.
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The University Grants Commission (UGC) had constituted a committee to develop a detailed scheme along with implementation strategy on an innovative concept of ABC.
The commission has now shared the detailed guidelines with the stakeholders at its website and if anyone has any feedback or suggestion related to the same, they can send it to abcregulations2021@gmail.com on or before February 5, as per the UGC.
Th aim of ABC is, “to permit students to choose a pace for their studies along with the associated logistics and cost”.
“To allow students to tailor their degrees or make specific modifications or specialisations rather than undergoing the rigid, regularly prescribed degree or courses of a single university or autonomous college,” the UGC said in an official notice.