The Karnataka government has issued an order to implement the National Education Policy-2020 in the academic year 2021-2022. This will allow students to pursue two subjects for their college education.
The minister of higher education, Dr CN Ashwatha Narayan said that the implementation would be done as per the guidelines of NEP, which states that the students joining BA or BSc degree courses should be able to opt for two subjects (as Discipline Core) available. It is not necessary for studying subject-based graduate courses such as B Com, BCA, BBA, BVA, and BPA, reported The News Minute.
In the final year, they can opt for one subject to be their major and or continue with both subjects as their major. Students also need to choose Open Electives and Discipline Electives as per curriculum structure.
According to NEP, if a student discontinues the course, they will receive a certificate for graduating first year and a diploma certificate for graduating the second year. Students will receive a Bachelor's degree at the end of the third year.
And when the student completes the 4th year, the student will be awarded the Honors Degree. If a Research Project is part of the course, students will be eligible to pursue PhD. However, it is not mandatory for colleges to have an honors degree. Students can go to a different college to study in the fourth year, reported TNM.
NEP also suggests that students need to choose Kannada and another language to study during the three years. The state will be preparing a separate Kannada curriculum for the students who did not learn Kannada during their school years.
According to the NEP guidelines, students can get up to 40% of their credits through official online courses. Students can also get a degree from the university by getting a minimum of 50% credits. Eligible colleges can also have integrated courses of five years.
Karnataka is the first state to implement the new system.