Consider credits earned through online courses: UGC to educational institutions

Hyderabad: Come May, all the Central, State, private and deemed-to-be universities and colleges have to mandatorily implement credit earning for online courses and credit mobility regulations of the University Grants Commission (UGC). Accordingly, all the higher education institutions have been asked to make necessary changes in their university statutes, rules and regulations by the end of May this year and implement the UGC's Credit Framework for Online Learning Courses through Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds Regulations, 2021.

The new regulations will allow the education institutions to allow students earn credits by pursuing online courses from the SWAYAM online platform. For this, the schedule of the SWAYAM-based online credit courses has to be aligned with the conventional education semester commencing in January and July of every year. The list of SWAYAM-based online credit courses for the ensuing semester would be notified before November 1, for the January semester and before June 1, for the July semester, every year.

Keeping in view the academic requirements, the higher educational institutions have been asked to decide the courses allowed for credit transfer, and they can allow students to pursue only up to 40 per cent of the total courses, being offered in a particular programme in a semester through the SWAYAM platform.

Students will be provided with the certificate with grades after the end term examination for credit transfer. And, the same will have to be incorporated in their mark lists and counted for the final declaration of results for the award of the degree, diploma or any other course by the educational institutions.

Further, all the higher educational institutions need to accept the credits earned by the students under credit transfer and credit mobility provided under the new regulation to give students a wide choice to study and explore their interested fields.