The document discusses the Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) implemented in Indian higher education. It notes the need for academic reform due to lack of flexibility, interdisciplinarity, and choices for students. CBCS aims to address these issues by allowing students to choose courses, learn at their own pace, and gain certifications. It introduces a credit-based system where credits measure workload and learning hours. While CBCS enhances learning opportunities and flexibility, it also faces challenges like lack of a national framework and partial student knowledge from extra subjects. Steps are suggested to improve CBCS quality, like developing a credit framework and increasing awareness.

1. Choice Based Credit System in
India: Learner Centric
Educational Reform?
Dr. Pratima Pallai(Assistant Professor)

2. Need For Academic Reform in
Higher Education
No inter-disciplinary mobility
 Lack of multi-disciplinarity
 Lack of choices for the student
 No opportunity to the learner to walk
out and walk in to earn a certification

3.  No scope to introduce latest
knowledge in the curriculum
 Learning goals of the course and
learning objectives of the units/submits
never enunciated
 Lacks context based approach
Cont’d ….

4. SOLUTION ???
Choice Based Credit System
(CBCS)

5. Academic Cafeteria
Education
Student
 Core subjects
 Elective
I,II,III,IV
(CBCT)
 Disaster Management
 Automobile Eng.
 Total Quality
Management
 Internalizing Intellectual
Property Rights
 Human Anatomy
 Cultural studies
 Biosafety and Bioethics
 Human Anatomy
 Green Chemistry
 German
Language…………

6. Conceptual background of
Credit System
 Credit defines the quantum of
contents/ syllabus prescribed for a
course and determines the number of
hours of instruction required
 Credit points refers to the ‘workload’
of a learner and is an index of the
number of learning hours deemed for
a certain segment of learning

7.  Cedefop (2009) defines a credit
system as ‘an instrument designed to
enable accumulation of learning
outcomes gained in formal, non-formal
and/ or informal settings, and ease
their transfer from one setting to
another for validation and recognition’.

8. Choice Based Credit System
of Higher Education in India
According to Action Plan for Academic
and Administrative Reform (2009) of
UGC:
 Curricular flexibility and learners’
mobility is an issue that warrants our
urgent attention
 These can be addressed by
introducing credit based courses and
credit accumulation

9. Cont’d…
The University Grants Commission
(UGC) has made it compulsory to
implement choice- based credit
system (CBCS) in
 All undergraduate (UG) and
 Postgraduate (PG) courses
 Ph.D Courses
under the XI and XII Plan

10. What is CBCS
It is an instructional package developed
to
 Suit the needs of students to keep
pace with the developments in higher
education
 The quality assurance expected of it
in the light of liberalization and
globalization in higher education

11. What is CBCS
A “cafeteria” type approach in
which the students can
 Take courses of their choice
 Learn at their own pace
 Undergo additional courses

12. Cont’d…
 Adopt an interdisciplinary
approach to learning
 Teacher-centered education to
a student-centered education

13. Important Features of the
CBCS
 Enhances learning opportunities
 Match learners’ scholastic needs
and aspirations
 Inter-institution transferability of
learners
 Improvement in educational
quality and excellence

14.  Flexibility for working learners to
complete the programme over an
extended period of time
 Standardization and
comparability of educational
programmes across the country
Cont’d…..

15. Advantages of the CBCS
Respects student autonomy
 Improve interdisciplinary
approach
 Records student’s workload
 Helps self-learning
 Offers more flexibility
 Facilitates students' mobility

16. Disadvantages of CBCS
 Lack of National Framework of Credit
System
 Gap in demand and supply
 Accumulation of Credits
 Absence of collaboration with
International Credit System
 Lack of Awareness among stakeholders
 Partial knowledge of extra subject
 Overburden to teachers and students

17. Steps to improve the quality of
CBCS
 Development of a National
Framework of Credit System
 Blending the input as well
outcomes approaches of credit
assignment
 System of Credit Bank for each
student for proper recording of
earned credit

18. Cont’d…
 Transparent mechanism for the
transfer of credits
 Collaboration with international
credit systems
 Awareness and orientation
programme for stakeholders
 Providing conceptual clarity
 Motivating teachers and students